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Dubai (AFP) – The assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has triggered a crisis in diplomatic relations and public relations in Saudi Arabia, but little could change for the victims of the war in Yemen.
On Wednesday, at least 24 civilians were killed in strikes in Hodeida province, Yemen, in the Red Sea district, amid a clash between a regional military alliance led by Saudi Arabia and Huthi rebels backed by Iran.
Among the affected areas, there was a facility where workers were packing vegetables, said the UN.
But bombings have been largely ignored by statesmen around the world.
Saudi Arabia and its allies are mired in the conflict in Yemen, which is trying to attract the attention of the international community even as 14 million of its citizens are facing a famine imminent.
According to the Yemen Data Project, the country was hit by at least 154 airstrikes in September alone.
Children have been killed in air strikes, while blockade and corruption prevent entire cities from finding food and drinking water.
Saudi Arabia is now under almost unprecedented scrutiny since the murder of Khashoggi, a former royal court official who became a critic, who wrote a column for The Washington Post.
Analysts say Khashoggi's murder is unlikely to divert attention from Saudi Arabia's wider policy – leaving Yemenis struggling to survive the war, famine and an economy. bankruptcy that could prove as fatal as violence.
– Kill, maim children –
"Saudi Arabia has been called for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi more than in the last years of the war in Yemen," said Farea al-Muslimi, research associate at Chatham House.
"For a government, it's an easy public relations game, even if you've been involved for years in Yemen," Muslimi said.
Under the command of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – now the heir to the Saudi throne, then Minister of National Defense – Saudi Arabia led a regional coalition in Yemen in 2015 to assist the government in his fight against the Huthis.
While both sides are accused of acts that may constitute war crimes, Riyadh and its allies have been blacklisted by the UN for the murder and mutilation of children.
The Saudi-led alliance also controls Yemen's airspace and has imposed a nationwide, and severely restricted, blockade on the country's ports, a move they say is aimed at ending weapons smuggling. Iranians to the Huthis.
But it is unlikely that the crown prince – whose country is also the world's largest donor to Yemen – will be summoned for his role in the war, analysts said.
"The assassination of Jamal is a well-defined scenario … Western states have had no immediate role in this affair," Muslimi told AFP.
"Yemen, however, is complex, there is no black and white, it requires reflection."
Since the Saudi-led coalition intervened in the conflict, nearly 10,000 civilians have been killed, according to the World Health Organization.
Other advocacy groups estimate that the balance sheet could reach 50,000 people.
– Every victim "worthy" –
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Europe and the United States provide more than 98% of the weapons imported by Saudi Arabia.
While Germany said last week that it had suspended arms sales to Saudi Arabia following the murder of Khashoggi, French President Emmanuel Macron initially rejected the idea of populist.
Macron then declared that he supported a "coordinated European position" on potential sanctions.
Washington also refused to relinquish Saudi Arabia as a trading partner that, according to President Donald Trump, had purchased "$ 110 billion worth of weapons" in the United States.
In August, reports revealed that the US company Lockheed Martin had manufactured the laser-guided Mk 82 bomb on a rebel-controlled bus in northern Yemen, killing 40 people.
Under Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, the US military has expanded its operations to Yemen, where Al-Qaeda is located in the Arabian Peninsula.
And since Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in Yemen in 2015, the US armed forces provided assistance with air targeting, intelligence sharing and mid-flight refueling to the US-led coalition. Saudi Arabia.
Khashoggi's role-writing for one of the most prominent newspapers in the United States has earned him worldwide notoriety. But rights groups fear that those trapped in a war in which Saudi Arabia plays a central role will remain relegated to the margins.
"Every victim of an illegal strike by the Saudi Arabian coalition in Yemen is as worrying as a Washington Post editorialist," said Kristine Beckerle, a researcher for Human Rights Watch in Yemen.
"A groom and his wedding, a child locked up in a prison, villagers digging a well, crowds shopping in a market, all killed or wounded in bomb attacks by the US-led coalition." Saudi Arabia, "she said.
"None of these apparent war crimes in Yemen has been able to provoke the kind of international outrage that the killing of Khashoggi has had in recent weeks."
