As President of the Cluster Munitions Convention as of 1 January 2016, the Netherlands is deeply concerned about reports on the alleged use of cluster munitions during the conflict in Yemen. Over the past months, various reports detailed the alleged use of cluster munitions on Yemeni territory.

On Friday January 8th, 2016, the Secretary-General of the United Nations issued a statement, noting that he had “received troubling reports of the use of cluster munitions in attacks on several locations in Sana’a on 6 January”. This statement was based inter alia on the discovery of 29 remnants of cluster sub-munitions by the team of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Compliance with the norm of the non-use of cluster munitions is of the utmost importance for the Netherlands. We call upon all countries in the coalition and the Yemeni government to react to these allegations in a concrete, open and transparent way. We also call upon these countries to refrain from the use of cluster munitions