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The U.S. has killed over 100 people in Yemen in less than a month of bombardments, Yemen health officials say, killing dozens of civilians as the Trump administration escalates its attacks on the region.
The Yemen Health Ministry reported on Monday that U.S. airstrikes have killed at least 123 people in Yemen since March 16, and wounded at least 247 others.
This includes a strike on a ceramics factory near Sanaa on Sunday that killed at least seven people and injured 29 others, with at least five children killed or wounded.
Health officials condemned the “blatant U.S. aggression on the homeland and its direct targeting of civilian objects and civilians.”
“This crime, added to the criminal record of the American-Zionist enemy, is a full-fledged war crime and a flagrant violation of all international laws and conventions,” added the ministry.
The health ministry did not specify the number of civilians included in the toll, but analyses have found that the Trump administration is killing civilians in Yemen at an accelerated pace compared to the Biden administration.
According to the Yemen Data Project, between March 15 and 31, the U.S. killed at least 28 civilians, including four children, and injured 66 others. This number may be higher, as Yemen Data Project says it cited the “most conservative numbers” in its accounting of civilians, and statements from witnesses in recent reports have suggested that the number of civilians killed may be higher.
By contrast, the Biden administration’s strikes on Yemen — which experts have also said violate constitutional safeguards regarding declarations of war — killed and injured 85 civilians in a year. At the same time, the Trump administration is striking Yemen at a rate seven times higher than the Biden administration, with an average of 98 strikes, using up to 263 munitions, dropped on Yemen in the latter half of March.
This is also seemingly an escalation from civilian killings in Yemen during Trump’s first term, during which the U.S. killed at least 84 civilians, according to an investigation by Airwars.
One of the Trump administration’s first actions in his second term was to eliminate an office within the Pentagon focused on limiting civilian death. Though U.S. presidents from both parties routinely carry out and facilitate civilian killings, civilian deaths soared during Trump’s first term.
The Trump administration has celebrated the strikes, as The Atlantic’s leak of a chat on messaging app Signal last month showed. Witnesses to the administration’s initial strike on Yemen on March 15 said that it hit a family home, shredding the bodies of the family members, including numerous children. When told that the strike collapsed a residential building — which experts said was a war crime — Vice President J.D. Vance labelled it as “excellent,” while National Security Adviser Michael Waltz said it was “amazing.”
Around the time of the Signal leak, the U.S. bombed a cancer hospital in Yemen twice over the course of two weeks, destroying the facility.
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