He came to Yemen to help his family. Now people carry him to the toilet.
A year after a US airstrike killed dozens of East African migrants held in a Yemeni detention center, Amnesty International has renewed its call for a formal war crimes investigation — and no one has been held accountable. The survivors, young men who traveled to Yemen seeking work to send home, now live with amputations, implanted metal rods, and grief that has found no institutional address. In the long human story of war and its aftermath, this anniversary marks not a reckoning but an absence — the silence that follows when power declines to answer for what it has done.
- One year after the Saada strike, the gap between the US government's official civilian death count of 13 and independent estimates of up to 642 killed in Yemen since 2009 has become its own indictment of accountability.
- Survivors describe lives shattered beyond recovery — a 22-year-old in constant pain who cannot support himself, a 30-year-old carried to the toilet after losing a leg, a 32-year-old who watches sadness settle permanently onto his family's faces.
- The Trump administration dismantled the very offices designed to reduce civilian harm even as it escalated its Yemen bombing campaign, and a February strike on an Iranian school killed 155 people including 120 children.
- Amnesty is pressing Congress to demand public accountability for strikes in both Yemen and Iran, ensure reparations reach those harmed, and halt funding that may be enabling violations of international humanitarian law.
- The Pentagon's next civilian casualty report is due May 1, and Democratic senators launched a separate probe into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's role in weakening civilian harm protections — but whether either effort reaches the men in Ethiopia with metal rods in their legs remains an open question.
On April 28, 2025, a US airstrike struck a migrant detention center in Saada, Yemen, killing dozens of men who had traveled from Ethiopia and East Africa in search of work. One year later, Amnesty International has renewed its call for a formal war crimes investigation. No family has received a full explanation. No one has been held accountable.
The survivors Amnesty interviewed — identified by pseudonyms for their safety — describe lives fundamentally broken. Araya, 22, lives with a metal rod in his arm and told researchers that without painkillers, he loses the will to go on. Jirata, 30, lost one leg entirely and has a rod in the other; he came to Yemen to help his family and now must be carried to the toilet. Abay, 32, returned to Ethiopia with injuries to his leg and hand and sees the sadness on his family's faces every day. Each man went to change lives. Each made them harder.
Amnesty's US director Nadia Daar noted that the pattern of US strikes between March and May of last year should have triggered urgent global concern — and instead, the administration moved in the opposite direction, dismantling offices designed to reduce civilian harm. A February 2026 US strike on a school in Minab, Iran, killed 155 people, including 120 children, which Amnesty concluded last month constituted a serious breach of international humanitarian law.
The distance between official figures and reality is stark: the US government counts 13 civilian deaths from its Yemen operations since 2009; the monitoring group Airwars estimates between 443 and 642. The Pentagon's next annual civilian casualty report is due May 1. Amnesty is calling on Congress to demand public accountability, ensure reparations, and stop funding operations that may be enabling violations of international law. Democratic senators launched a separate investigation into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's role in weakening civilian harm protections last week. Whether any of it produces answers for the men sitting in Ethiopia with metal rods in their legs remains, for now, unanswered.
On the morning of April 28, 2025, a US airstrike hit a migrant detention center in Saada, Yemen, killing dozens of people who had traveled there from Ethiopia and other parts of East Africa looking for work. One year later, no one has been held accountable. No family has received a full explanation. And the survivors — men who came to Yemen hoping to send money home — are living with metal rods in their limbs, missing legs, and a grief that has no institutional address.
Amnesty International marked that anniversary on Tuesday by renewing its call for a formal war crimes investigation into the strike. The organization has been pressing this case since the attack, but the renewed demand carries fresh weight given what has happened in the months since — including a February 2025 US airstrike on a school in Minab, Iran, that killed 155 people, among them 120 children.
The Trump administration had escalated its bombing campaign in Yemen beginning in the spring of 2025, framing the intensified strikes as a response to Houthi resistance connected to Israel's military campaign in Gaza. The United States has conducted strikes in Yemen since 2002, but the pace and scope of operations during that period drew particular scrutiny from human rights monitors. Amnesty's US director, Nadia Daar, said the pattern of strikes between March and May of last year should have triggered urgent global concern about civilian protection — and instead, the administration moved in the opposite direction, dismantling the very offices designed to reduce civilian harm.
The Iran school strike, which Amnesty concluded last month constituted a serious breach of international humanitarian law, offers a grim preview of what accountability — or the absence of it — may look like for Iranian families. Amnesty's senior director Erika Guevara Rosas noted that US authorities could and should have identified the building as a school before striking it, and that targeting protected civilian structures is flatly prohibited under international law. But the Yemen case, now a year old, shows how these investigations tend to resolve: with silence.
The survivors Amnesty interviewed — identified by pseudonyms to protect their safety — describe lives that have been fundamentally broken. Araya, a 22-year-old Ethiopian man, sustained a serious arm injury in the strike and told researchers that without painkillers, he loses the will to go on. The metal rod implanted in his arm causes him constant pain. He is 22 years old and cannot support himself. Jirata, who is 30, lost one leg entirely and has a rod in the other. He told Amnesty he has lost hope, that people now carry him to the toilet, and that he came to Yemen to help his family — not to become a burden to them. Abay, 32, returned to Ethiopia with injuries to his leg and hand and said he can see the sadness on his family's faces every day. He went to change their lives. He made them harder.
Guevara Rosas described the arc of these men's stories with precision: they traveled to Yemen seeking opportunity, were detained by Houthi forces, lost their freedom, and were then struck by a US airstrike. Those who lived have been left in a kind of permanent limbo — no justice, no reparations, no acknowledgment from the government that caused their injuries that anything wrong was done.
The gap between official US figures and independent estimates of the human cost of these operations is itself a story. According to the monitoring group Airwars, US forces have killed between 443 and 642 people in Yemen since 2009. The US government's own official count for that same period is 13. The Pentagon's next annual civilian casualty report is due May 1.
Amnesty is calling on the US Congress to exercise meaningful oversight — to demand a public accounting of the strikes in Yemen and Iran, to ensure reparations reach the people harmed, and to stop appropriating funds that may be enabling violations of international humanitarian law. Democratic senators launched a separate investigation into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's role in weakening civilian harm protections just last week. Whether either effort produces answers for the men sitting in Ethiopia with metal rods in their legs remains, for now, an open question.
Citas Notables
The US government caused all this and as a result of the airstrike, I can no longer work and support myself. I want them to provide any type of reparation that will help with our life in any way possible — something that will revive my hope.— Jirata, 30-year-old Ethiopian survivor, speaking to Amnesty International
Families of those killed in the attack on the detention center in Yemen are still being denied basic information about what happened, and remain without justice for their loved ones.— Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International senior director
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why is Amnesty renewing this call now, a year later? What's changed?
In one sense, nothing has changed — and that's exactly the point. No accountability, no investigation results, no reparations. The anniversary is a way of saying: we haven't forgotten, and you haven't answered.
The survivors were migrants detained by the Houthis. Does that complicate the legal picture?
It complicates the politics, maybe. But not the law. Under international humanitarian law, a detention facility holding civilians is a protected site. The nationality of the detaining force doesn't transfer legal responsibility for a strike to anyone other than the party that launched it.
The US government says it killed 13 civilians in Yemen since 2009. Airwars says up to 642. How does that gap exist?
Methodology and incentive. The US counts only cases it formally investigates and confirms. Airwars aggregates open-source reporting, witness accounts, and local documentation. The gap isn't just a rounding error — it reflects a system designed to minimize what gets counted.
The Iran school strike keeps coming up in this story. Why?
Because it happened after the Yemen strike, and it suggests the pattern is continuing rather than being corrected. Amnesty is essentially arguing: Yemen should have been a warning. Instead, a school full of children was hit four months later.
What do the survivors actually want?
They're specific about it. Reparations, yes — but also an explanation. An acknowledgment. The word one of them used was "revive." He wants something that will revive his hope. That's not a legal term. It's a human one.
Is Congress likely to act on any of this?
The Democratic senators' investigation into Hegseth is a signal that some oversight appetite exists. But investigations and accountability are different things. The Pentagon report due May 1 will be worth watching — it's one of the few formal mechanisms that exists for this kind of reckoning.