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Amnesty Urges War Crimes Probe Into US Bombing of Yemen Migrant Jail
"The major loss of civilian life in this attack raises serious concerns about whether the U.S. complied with its obligations under international humanitarian law, including the rules on distinction and precautions."
May 19, 2025
The human rights group Amnesty International on Monday called for an investigation of an April U.S. airstrike on a migrant detention center in Yemen that killed and wounded more than 100 people as part of a wider bombing campaign targeting Houthi rebels that has left hundreds of people dead.
The U.S.—which has been bombing Yemen since 2002 as part of the so-called War on Terror launched after the September 11, 2001 attacks—intensified strikes in March 2025 in response to Houthi resistance to Israel's annihilation of Gaza and countries who support it. U.S. airstrtikes on Yemen, which averaged around a dozen per month during the final year of the Biden administration, soared to more than 60 in March under President Donald Trump, according to the Yemen Data Project.
"Under international humanitarian law attacking forces have an obligation to do everything feasible to distinguish between military and civilian targets."
On April 28, U.S. forces bombed the detention center for African migrants in the city of Sa'ada. People familiar with the site told Amnesty that all but one of the migrants jailed at the facility at the time of the attack were Ethiopians, except for one Eritrean. One person told Amnesty that they spoke to survivors of the strike, who said that detainees were sleeping when the center was bombed at around 4:00 am local time.
"They said they woke up to find dismembered bodies around them," the person recounted. "You could see the shock and horror on their faces. Some were still unable to speak because of the trauma."
Another witness said victims "suffered from different fractures and bruises," with some "in critical condition... two had amputated legs."
According to Amnesty:
Under international humanitarian law attacking forces have an obligation to do everything feasible to distinguish between military and civilian targets, to verify whether their intended target is a military objective and to cancel an attack if there is doubt. When attacking a military objective, parties to a conflict must also take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians in the vicinity.
"The U.S. attacked a well-known detention facility where the Houthis have been detaining migrants who had no means to take shelter. The major loss of civilian life in this attack raises serious concerns about whether the U.S. complied with its obligations under international humanitarian law, including the rules on distinction and precautions," Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard said Monday.
"The U.S. must conduct a prompt, independent, and transparent investigation into this airstrike and into any other airstrikes that have resulted in civilian casualties as well as those where the rules of international humanitarian law may have been violated," Callamard added.
Other recent U.S. massacres in Yemen include the April 17 bombing of the Ras Isa fuel terminal in the Hodeida region, which Houthi officials said killed at least 80 people and wounded more than 170 others, and the April 20 strike on the popular Farwah market in the Shuub neighborhood of the capital Sanaa that killed at least 12 people and wounded 30 others.
"At a time when the U.S. appears to be
shrinking efforts aimed at reducing civilian harm by U.S. lethal actions, the U.S. Congress should play its oversight role and demand information on investigations to date on these strikes," Callamard said. "Congress must further ensure that civilian harm mitigation and response mechanisms remain intact and robustly respond to this and other recent incidents."
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'A Disgrace': Trump Budget Gives $1 Trillion to Military While Slashing Programs for Working Class
"President Trump has made his priorities clear as day: He wants to outright defund programs that help working Americans while he shovels massive tax breaks at billionaires like himself."
May 02, 2025
The budget blueprint that U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled Friday would give a record $1.01 trillion to the American military for the coming fiscal year while imposing $163 billion in total cuts to housing, education, healthcare, climate, and labor programs.
The proposal, released by Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought, was viewed by Democratic lawmakers and other critics as a clear statement of the White House's intent to gut programs that working class Americans rely on while pursuing another round of tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and bolstering the Pentagon, a morass of waste and abuse.
"President Trump has made his priorities clear as day," said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. "He wants to outright defund programs that help working Americans while he shovels massive tax breaks at billionaires like himself and raises taxes on middle-class Americans with his reckless tariffs."
"This president believes we should shred at least $163 billion in investments here at home that make all the difference for families and have been essential to America's success—but that we should hand billionaires and the biggest corporations trillions in new tax breaks," Murray added. "That is outrageous—and it should offend every hardworking American who wants their tax dollars to help them live a good life, not pad the pockets of billionaires."
"Trump is prioritizing his own wallet and the tax benefits of his wealthy donors—leaving local communities and small towns to bear the brunt of his cuts."
According to the OMB summary, Trump's Fiscal Year 2026 budget would cut over $4.5 billion from Title I and K-12 education programs, $4 billion from a program that provides heating assistance to low-income households, $2.4 billion from safe drinking water funding, $26 billion from rental assistance programs, $17 billion from the National Institutes of Health, $100 million from environmental justice programs, $1.3 billion from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and $4.6 billion from the Labor Department.
"President Trump is again betraying the millions of Americans who believed him when he promised to lower costs," Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable.US, said in a statement. "This time, he's taking aim at anyone who attends a public school, relies on rental assistance to keep a roof over their heads, or accesses healthcare through Medicaid or Medicare."
"Instead of standing up for everyday Americans," said Carrk, "Trump is prioritizing his own wallet and the tax benefits of his wealthy donors—leaving local communities and small towns to bear the brunt of his cuts."
Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, noted that the cuts to social programs in the White House's budget proposal "are extreme by any standard, but they're extreme even by Trump's own standards," far exceeding even what he proposed during his first term.
"The cuts in this budget are especially egregious," said Kogan, "when you consider that Trump is also trying to push the largest Medicaid and food assistance cuts in American history through Congress over the next few months."
Meanwhile, the U.S. military would see a $113 billion budget increase compared to current levels if the Republican-controlled Congress were to enact Trump's proposal. The 13% increase would push the nation's annual military budget above $1 trillion, which analysts have described as the highest level since the Second World War.
"The Pentagon is bloated, wasteful, and has NEVER passed an audit," the progressive watchdog group Public Citizen wrote in response to Trump's budget. "What a disgrace."
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US Led 'Unprecedented' Surge in Global Military Spending in 2024
"As governments increasingly prioritize military security, often at the expense of other budget areas, the economic and social trade-offs could have significant effects on societies for years to come," said one expert.
Apr 28, 2025
Military spending worldwide soared to $2.718 trillion last year, meaning it "has increased every year for a full decade, going up by 37% between 2015 and 2024," according to an annual report released Monday.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has tracked conflict, disarmament, and weapons for nearly six decades. Its 2024 spending report states that "for the second year in a row, military expenditure increased in all five of the world's geographical regions, reflecting heightened geopolitical tensions across the globe."
In a Monday statement, Xiao Liang, a researcher with the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Program, highlighted that "over 100 countries around the world raised their military spending in 2024."
"It was the highest year-on-year increase since the end of the Cold War."
"This was really unprecedented... It was the highest year-on-year increase since the end of the Cold War," Liang told Agence France-Press, while acknowledging that there may have been larger jumps during the Cold War but Soviet Union data is not available.
Liang warned that "as governments increasingly prioritize military security, often at the expense of other budget areas, the economic and social trade-offs could have significant effects on societies for years to come."
The United States—whose Republican lawmakers are currently cooking up a plan to give even more money to a Pentagon that's never passed an audit—led all countries, with $997 billion in military spending. The report points out that the U.S. not only allocated "3.2 times more than the second-largest spender," but also "accounted for 37% of global military expenditure in 2024 and 66% of spending by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members."
In the second spot was China, with an estimated $314 billion in spending. Nan Tian, director of the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Program, raised the alarm about spending in Asia.
"Major military spenders in the Asia-Pacific region are investing increasing resources into advanced military capabilities," said Tian. "With several unresolved disputes and mounting tensions, these investments risk sending the region into a dangerous arms-race spiral."
In third place was Russia, with an estimated $149 billion in spending. Russia remains at war after launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Rounding out the top five were Germany ($88.5 billion) and India ($86.1 billion).
They were followed by the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, France, Japan, South Korea, Israel, Poland, Italy, and Australia. The report says that "together, the top 15 spenders in 2024 accounted for 80% of global military spending ($2,185 billion) and for 79% of the total increase in spending over the year. All 15 increased their military spending in 2024."
"The two largest year-on-year percentage increases among this group were in Israel (+65%) and Russia (+38%), highlighting the effect of major conflicts on spending trends in 2024," the publication continues. Israel has been engaged in a U.S.-backed military assault on the Gaza Strip—globally condemned as genocide—since October 2023.
"Russia once again significantly increased its military spending, widening the spending gap with Ukraine," noted SIPRI researcher Diego Lopes da Silva. "Ukraine currently allocates all of its tax revenues to its military. In such a tight fiscal space, it will be challenging for Ukraine to keep increasing its military spending."
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday announced an upcoming three-day truce to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. In response, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for an immediate monthlong cease-fire.
All NATO members boosted military spending last year, which SIPRI researcher Jade Guiberteau Ricard said was "driven mainly by the ongoing Russian threat and concerns about possible U.S. disengagement within the alliance."
"It is worth saying that boosting spending alone will not necessarily translate into significantly greater military capability or independence from the USA," the expert added. "Those are far more complex tasks."
Another SIPRI researcher, Lorenzo Scarazzato, highlighted that "for the first time since reunification Germany became the biggest military spender in Western Europe, which was due to the €100 billion special defense fund announced in 2022."
"The latest policies adopted in Germany and many other European countries suggest that Europe has entered a period of high and increasing military spending that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future," Scarazzato said.
As for the Middle East, SIPRI researcher Zubaida Kari said that "despite widespread expectations that many Middle Eastern countries would increase their military spending in 2024, major rises were limited to Israel and Lebanon."
In addition to slaughtering at least tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza over the past nearly 19 months, Israel has killed thousands of people in Lebanon while allegedly targeting the political and paramilitary group Hezbollah. Kari said that elsewhere in the region, "countries either did not significantly increase spending in response to the war in Gaza or were prevented from doing so by economic constraints."
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