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AFP
Ali Tayyib, nine years old, and two of his brothers were killed in the attack
A month ago, an air coalition led by the Saudi Armed Forces in Yemen had killed at least 29 people in an airstrike against a school bus, largely condemning the international community.
The coalition, which supports Yemen's government in its war against the Houthi rebel movement, has acknowledged "mistakes" and promised to "punish" those responsible.
Western powers demanded that the coalition take concerted action to protect civilians.
But for families still in mourning, there is little to lessen their sense of loss.
Morning tragedy
It was just before sunrise on August 9, when Dr. Ali al-Taifi came out of the operating room.
As the main maxillofacial surgeon at al-Talh hospital in the rebel-controlled city of Sa'ada, he had worked at night and was preparing to return home.
The city market of Dahyan, 20 km to the north, was already very hectic, traders and traders arriving for the day.
At home, Zaid Hussein Tayyib had breakfast with his family.
Three of his five sons were on a trip marking the end of their Koranic summer school, but Mr. Tayyib was reluctant to let them go in large groups.
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"We are waiting and waiting for a strike at any time – on the market, at the mosque, at school, at a rally, a wedding, a funeral," he said.
The province of Saada, Houthi stronghold, has been particularly bombarded by the coalition since it intervened in the conflict in March 2015.
The coalition air strikes were the cause of the majority of the 17,223 civilian casualties – 6,660 dead and 10,563 wounded – documented by the United Nations.
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A video of the trip was found on the phone of one of the boys killed during the strike
Despite the risk, Mr. Tayyib allowed his sons – Youssef, 14, Ahmed, 11, and Ali, nine – to go on a trip.
A mobile phone video published by the Houthis shows a bus filled with students in great shape.
They are also seen reciting verses from the Quran with a teacher in a tent in a "martyr's garden" where many war dead are buried before escaping into the cemetery and calling each other.
"Indescribable pain"
Around 8:20 am, Mr Tayyib was waiting for a colleague near the market when the bus carrying the children stopped nearby.
Witnesses said that the driver had stopped to buy drinks and snacks for the boys.
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Zaid Tayyib
Zaid Tayyib with four of his five sons – Youssef, 14, Ahmed, 11, and Ali, 9, and Mohammed, 5
It was barely time to record the squealing of the jets above the head before the bomb hit.
Mr. Tayyib was in shock and panic as the premises approached. "I felt pain – pain, indescribable pain," he says.
He started looking for his sons.
He lifted the lifeless body of a child, a blue Unicef backpack still on his back. It was only when he turned the boy's face towards him that he realized that it was Ahmed.
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Dozens of boys attending a local Koran school were on the bus
He had found Youssef and put his body on the sidewalk next to his brother when his wife had called, desperate to find out where their children were.
When he told her the news and said that Ali was still missing, she made him promise that he would not go home until they found their son.
Young victims
The arrival of the strike victims arrived at the hospital so suddenly that Dr. Taifi did not have time to ask what had happened.
As he treated the victims, he was struck by their age.
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Reuters
Dr. Taifi says that the scenes he witnessed after the bus attack were horrible
Until January, Dr. Taifi had worked in one of the major hospitals in the rebel-controlled capital, Sanaa, and had been busy victimizing many large-scale attacks.
But he says the scenes that followed the strike in Dahyan were the most horrible he has ever seen.
The Houthi-led ministry of health said 40 children and 11 adults were killed and 79 injured, including 56 children.
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The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) confirmed that Al-Talh hospital received the bodies of 29 children.
Human Rights Watch has meanwhile documented the names, ages and status of 34 people who died, including 25 children and three teachers on the bus; and a child, a teacher, and two other men on the market.
"Legitimate target"
Despite the age of the victims, the coalition first insisted that the strike was a "legitimate military action conducted in accordance with international humanitarian law and its customary rules".
The spokesman, Colonel Turki al-Malki, said he had targeted the Houthis responsible for launching a ballistic missile from the neighboring province of Amran that had been intercepted the previous night in southern Arabia. Arabia. The missile debris killed a person in the city of Jazan.
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EPA
Colonel Turki al-Malki said the coalition strike was a "legitimate military action"
Two days later, the Saudi mission to the United Nations said the coalition had sent the operation back to its Joint Incident Evaluation Team (JIAT) for investigation in response to reports "stating that a bus was subject to collateral damages".
On September 1st, the coalition declared that JIAT had identified "errors in the respect of the rules of engagement". The coalition expressed "regret" and said that it "would take legal action to try those who made mistakes".
He also promised to work with the Yemeni government to compensate the families of the victims.
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AFP
Saudi Arabia and its allies see the Houthis as an Iranian proxy
JIAT's legal adviser, Lt. General Mansour Ahmed al-Mansour, said that a Houthi leader in charge of military training, identified as Mohammed Abdul Hafiz Sitteen, was on the bus with three other men responsible for recruiting and training fighters.
But the general said the strike was not necessary to prevent an imminent attack and that it should have taken place when the bus was "in an open area to avoid such collateral damage". He said that there was a delay in the issuance of a non-strike order.
Koran teachers
Mohammed Hajar, a Houthi-run health ministry official, rejected the coalition's allegations that children were being used as human shields, saying it was "impossible" that there were fighters on the bus.
The Houthi-led Ministry of Education said that Mohammed Sitteen was a 28-year-old teacher at the Qur'anic school – a statement backed by parents who spoke to the BBC and children interviewed by Human Rights Watch.
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Parents and children say that Mohammed Sitteen was a teacher; the coalition says that he was a rebel
Ali Hussein al-Ajri was another teacher identified by the ministry.
His brother Yahya said that the father of three, aged 27, volunteered at the Koran school every day after finishing his job in the store he owned.
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Yahya was shocked to hear the allegations of the coalition.
"It's my brother and I know him," he says. "He never took a gun, he did not even carry a dagger of ham."
Dr. Taifi and Dr. Abbas al-Muttawakil, the head of the emergency room at Al-Jomhouri Hospital in Saada, also said that there were no fighters among the wounded whom they had treated.
Laws of war
After the JIAT investigation, the coalition stressed that it remained committed to the respect of international law and that its rules of engagement were applied "in accordance with the highest international standards and practices" in order to preserve the life and civilian objects.
However, United Nations human rights experts had said a few days earlier that there were reasonable grounds to believe that coalition members "had carried out attacks in violation of the principles of distinction , of proportionality and precaution which may constitute war crimes ".
They cited air strikes on residential areas, markets, funerals, weddings, detention centers, civilian boats and medical facilities.
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EPA
The UN said 6,660 civilians had been killed in Yemen since 2015
The coalition rejected the experts' report, which also accused the Houthis of possible war crimes, saying it contained "false allegations".
In its report on Dahyan's attack, Human Rights Watch noted that according to the laws of war, all parties must "do everything possible to verify that the objectives are valid military objectives".
"Witnesses said that there were no armed men on the market or on the bus, and that the videos taken on the bus before the attack showed no fighter or weapon," the statement added. .
The group was unable to confirm the absence of a Houthi military target nearby, but pointed out that, even if present, "the use of an extended weapon in an overcrowded market would have been illegal loss ".
Weapon sales
Based on photographs and videos of alleged remains of the bomb used, Human Rights Watch and the Bellingcat Investigative Journalism Web site both identified it as a GBU-12 Paveway II, a 500-pound laser-guided munition produced by the US contractor Lockheed Martin.
Neither the United States nor Lockheed Martin confirmed that the bomb had been used, but the evidence has raised new questions about the role of Western powers in the war.
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Activists say the coalition has launched a laser-guided bomb produced by Lockheed Martin
The United States, the United Kingdom and France provide logistical and intelligence support to the coalition and sell it weapons despite alleged violations of human rights.
On August 28, US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said that US assistance was "not unconditional" and would demand that the coalition "do all that is humanly possible to prevent any loss of innocent life".
But he added, "The people we work with have never been indifferent, so we will continue to work with them."
International silence
Although the UN Security Council has expressed "serious concern" after the airstrike, Mr. Tayyib despairs of what he says is the "silence" of the international community on Yemen.
"It's as if it was cattle that was targeted, as if it was not childhood that was targeted, as if it were not people who were been killed, "he says.
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Zaid Tayyib
Zaid Tayyib has two surviving sons – Mohammed, age 5, and Yahya, age 13
It was only five hours after the attack that Mr Tayyib received a call from the hospital telling him that they had found the body of his third son, Ali.
He borrowed a neighbor's car and brought it home.
Mr. Tayyib says that of all their children, his wife had a special relationship with Ali.
"Do you know the affection of a mother after the disappearance of their child?" She hugged him as if he had returned after 100 years of absence, she did not would not let go. "
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