Nearly 17,000 civilians killed or injured in Yemen war - Amnesty report

Amnesty International is calling on rights groups to keep up the pressure on governments and weapons manufacturers to stop providing arms to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. 

In its annual report - marking International Human Rights Day - Amnesty mentioned that millions of people "are at risk of famine." 

The Amnesty report also said that almost 17,000 civilians have been killed or injured since the conflict began in the war-torn country.

A report by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) published earlier this year had said that more than 6,000 children were among victims of the violence that resulted from attacks by the US-backed Saudi coalition.

The Amnesty report also warned that those who continue to sell weapons to Saudi risk being complicit in war crimes in Yemen. 

Amnesty highlighted a shift in policy towards the conflict in Yemen, in response to its efforts or international outrage over rising civilian casualties

The report mentioned several European countries including Spain, Germany, Greece, Norway and Finland where respective leaders and politicians had reviewed their relationship and sales to countries engaged in the conflict.

The report comes as the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels participate in UN sponsored talks in Sweden.

The Amnesty report says that the coalition air forces of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) air forces bombed residential areas, targeted civilian infrastructure, and even struck a school bus full of children during their raids that were carried this year.

It also highlighted the "reckless" ground attacks carried out by Yemen’s Houthi armed group that "indiscriminately shelled urban centres and villages."

World's worst humanitarian crisis

The conflict began with the Iran-aligned Houthi takeover of the capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen in 2014. The Saudi-led coalition went to war with the rebels the following March.

The fighting in Yemen has generated the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The executive director of the UN's World Food Program, David Beasley, said on Tuesday that 12 million people suffer from "severe hunger."

"I've heard many say that this is a country on the brink of catastrophe," Beasley said. "This is not a country on the brink of a catastrophe. This is a country that is in a catastrophe."

An earlier report by the WHO had said that 500,000 children were suffering from severe acute malnutrition while another million under the age of five were severely malnourished. 

The WHO report had said that seven million people were threatened by harsh condition of malnutrition in the country that the UN has warned is at risk suffering the world's worst famine in decades.