U.S. military strikes on the Ras Issa Port in Hodeidah, Yemen, on April 17, 2025, caused dozens of civilian casualties and significant damage to port infrastructure, Human Rights Watch said today. The attack should be investigated as a war crime.
As part of its military campaign against the Houthis, who control much of Yemen, that began on March 15, the United States targeted Ras Issa Port, one of three ports in the town of Hodeidah through which about 70 percent of Yemen’s commercial imports and 80 percent of its humanitarian assistance passes. Human Rights Watch identified via satellite imagery multiple attack sites. The independent research group Airwars found that the strikes killed 84 civilians and injured over 150. A United Nations spokesman stated that the secretary-general was “alarmed by reports of significant damage to the port infrastructure and of possible oil leaks into the Red Sea,” and that at least five humanitarian workers were reportedly injured.
The U.S. should credibly and impartially investigate this and other attacks in Yemen with civilian casualties in apparent violation of the laws of war and provide prompt compensation or “ex gratia” payments to civilians harmed. These include an April 28 attack on a migrant detention center in Saada that killed dozens of migrants and asylum seekers.
U.S. airstrikes in Yemen began on March 15 and continued until May 6, when President Donald Trump announced an end to the strikes. The U.S. Defense Department said it had carried out over 1,000 strikes in Yemen between March 15 and April 29. The US. has been implicated in laws-of-war violations in Yemen since it began “targeted killing operations” in 2002 against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Those strikes continued until at least 2019 and killed many civilians, including 12 people attending a wedding in 2013. To Human Rights Watch’s knowledge, the U.S. has never acknowledged or provided compensation for civilians harmed in this or other unlawful attacks.
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