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In September 2012, President Hadi decreed that an independent commission of inquiry should be created to investigate alleged violations committed during the 2011 uprising and recommend accountability for perpetrators and redress for victims. Over one year later, he had still not nominated the commissioners. Hadi presented a deeply flawed draft transitional justice law to parliament in January, but it has yet to be passed. The draft law does not grant victims judicial redress, but is merely a victim compensation scheme, limited in time to events of 2011. The trial began in September 2012 of 78 defendants-----but not the key suspects-----for the deadliest attack of the uprising, in which pro-government gunmen killed 45 protesters and wounded 200 on March 18, 2011. It was marred by political interference, failure to follow leads that might have implicated government officials, and factual errors. In April 2013, a trial judge ordered prosecutors to reinvestigate former president Saleh and 11 top aides in connection with the incident. Militant Attacks AQAP carried out dozens of deadly bombings and other attacks on Yemeni security forces. The Islamist group held several foreigners for ransom, releasing most after weeks or months, but continued to detain Saudi diplomat Abdallah al-Khalidi, who was abducted in March 2012. The US carried out at least 22 drone strikes on alleged AQAP members as of mid- September, according to the New America Foundation and the United Kingdom-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism. The strikes killed between 72 and 139 people, most of them alleged militants, but lack of access to most targeted areas and the unwillingness of the United States to provide information on attacks, prevented full inquiries, including regarding civilian casualties. A Human Rights Watch investigation of six US targeted killing operations in Yemen-----one in 2009 and the rest in 2012-13-----found two attacks were unlawfully indiscriminate and four others raised serious laws-of-war concerns. 2
Unlawful Use of Mines In May 2013, Human Rights Watch documented the use of antipersonnel landmines allegedly by the Republican Guards in Bani Jarmooz, an area northeast of the capital, Sanaa, in 2011. The mines have caused at least 1 death and 14 injuries of civilians, including 9 children. Yemen is a state party to the Mine Ban Treaty, and at a meeting of the treaty in Geneva in May, renewed its commitment to the treaty, promised to investigate the allegations, and committed itself to addressing the issue by clearing the mines and assisting the victims. The Ministry of Defense established a committee to investigate the allegations of landmine use and demine the area, but as of September the committee had yet to send an assessment team to the area. Attacks on Health Workers Health workers and facilities are struggling to protect themselves from armed groups. Medecins Sans Frontieres reported 18 different attacks against their staff in Amran in the past year, including shootings, threats, and physical attacks on health workers. Children and Armed Conflict In recent years, Human Rights Watch has documented cases of children participating in combat with both the First Armored Division and the Republican Guard. In June 2012, UNICEF Yemen reported several incidents of child recruitment by the Yemeni armed forces and by the armed group Ansar al-Sharia, an offshoot of AQAP. In September, the United Nations special rapporteur on children in armed conflict announced that the government had approved an action plan to end the recruitment and use of children in government armed forces. In Aden, from February until June, the Southern Movement (or Hirak), an umbrella group seeking independence or greater autonomy for southern Yemen, prevented nearly 50,000 children from going to school on Wednesdays and Saturdays so that they could participate in a civil disobedience campaign. At least a dozen schools in Aden came under armed attack during the campaign from Hirak forces, some several times. In September, the civil 3
Page 1: JANUARY 2014 COUNTRY SUMMARY Yemen
Page 5 and 6: The national dialogue presented an

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