Experts backed by the U.N.'s top human rights body are flagging allegations of rape, sexual assault and gender-based violence committed by all sides in Yemen's civil war.
The offenses also include those by militias backed by the United Arab Emirates. The militiamen have expanded their footprint in the south, seizing territory from forces loyal to the internationally recognized government, including the southern city of Aden.
The allegations are among key findings in the experts' latest report about an array of rights violations during the conflict, now in its fifth year.
Bodies covered in plastic lie on the ground amid the rubble of a Houthi detention center destroyed by Saudi-led airstrikes, that killed at least 60 people and wounding several dozen according to officials and the rebels' health ministry, in Dhamar province, southwestern Yemen, Sunday, Sept. 1, 2019. The officials said the airstrikes took place Sunday and targeted a college in the city of Dhamar, which the Houthi rebels use as a detention center. The Saudi-led coalition said it had hit a Houthi military facility used as storages for drones and missiles in Dhamar. (AP PhotoHani Mohammed)
The experts commissioned by the Human Rights Council also denounced allegations of hostage-taking of women and girls, and said the Shiite Houthi rebels, who hold northern Yemen, have kidnapped and detained women over the last two years to blackmail relatives.
A Yemeni southern separatist fighter inspects the wreckage of government forces vehicles destroyed by UAE airstrikes near Aden, Yemen, Friday, Aug. 30, 2019. (AP PhotoWail al-Qubaty)
JERUSALEM (AP) — The head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog will travel to Iran next week as Tehran's nuclear program enriches uranium a step away from weapons-grade levels and international oversight remains limited, officials said Wednesday.
Rafael Mariano Grossi's visit will coincide with a nuclear energy conference Iran will hold in the central city of Isfahan, which hosts sensitive enrichment sites and was targeted in an apparent Israeli attack on April 19. It also coincides with wider regional tensions in the Mideast inflamed by the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, including attacks on shipping by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency will visit Iran on May 6 and 7, the Vienna-based agency said. It did not elaborate on his schedule or his meetings.
Iranian state television has described the conference in Isfahan as an “international conference on nuclear sciences and techniques.” The broadcaster quoted Mohammed Eslami, the head of Iran's civilian nuclear program, as saying on Wednesday that Grossi will attend the conference and meet with him and other officials.
“I am sure that the ambiguities will be resolved and we can strengthen our relations with the agency within the framework of safeguards and” the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Eslami said.
Tensions have only grown between Iran and the IAEA since then-President Donald Trump in 2018 unilaterally withdraw America from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers. Since then, Iran has abandoned all limits the deal put on its program and now has enough enriched uranium for “several” nuclear bombs if it chose to build them, Grossi has warned.
IAEA surveillance cameras have been disrupted, while Iran has barred some of the agency's most experienced inspectors. Iranian officials have increasingly threatened they could pursue atomic weapons, particularly after launching an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel last month.
Iran has always denied seeking nuclear weapons, saying its atomic program is for purely civilian purposes. However, U.S. intelligence agencies and the IAEA say Iran had an organized military nuclear program up until 2003.
The latest American intelligence community assessment says Iran “is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device.”
Associated Press writer Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
FILE - International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi waits to meet Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida shakes hands at the prime minister's office in Tokyo Thursday, March 14, 2024. The head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog will travel to Iran next week as Tehran's nuclear program enriches uranium a step away from weapons-grade levels and international oversight of the program remains limited, officials said Wednesday, May 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool, File)
