An American airstrike in April on a prison run by Yemen’s Houthi rebels that killed over 60 detained African migrants should be investigated as a possible war crime, activists said Wednesday.
The call by Amnesty International renews scrutiny on the April 28 strike in Yemen’s Saada province. The attack came as part of an intense campaign of airstrikes waged under U.S. President Donald Trump targeting rebels for disrupting shipping through the Red Sea corridor amid the Israel-Hamas war.
The U.S. military’s Central Command has yet to offer any explanation for the strike on the prison, which previously had been hit by a Saudi-led coalition also fighting against the Houthis and had been known to hold detained African migrants trying to reach Saudi Arabia through the war zone.
“We take all reports of civilian harm seriously and are working to release the assessment results for Operation Rough Rider soon,” said U.S. Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for Central Command.
After the strike, the Houthis displayed debris likely from two 250-pound precision-guided GBU-39 small-diameter bombs used by the U.S. military, Amnesty said. Survivors interviewed by Amnesty, all Ethiopian migrants detained while trying to reach Saudi Arabia, told the rights group that they saw no Houthi fighters posted inside the building.
Amnesty said the strike appeared to be an “indiscriminate attack” as it assessed there was no clear military objective. International law prohibits striking sites like hospitals and prisons unless the structures are being used to plan attacks or stockpile weapons, and even then, every precaution should be made to avoid hurting civilians.
Amnesty said the Houthis recently put the death toll in the strike at 61, lower than the 68 it initially reported. Gunfire could be heard in footage filmed after the airstrikes, with the Houthis saying their guards fired warning shots around the time of the strikes.
The April strike recalled a similar strike by a Saudi-led coalition battling the Houthis in 2022 on the same compound, which caused a collapse killing 66 detainees and wounding 113 others, a United Nations report later said. The Houthis shot dead 16 detainees who fled after the strike and wounded another 50, the U.N. said.
The Houthis denied any misconduct in the April strike, but Amnesty noted the rebels’ “ongoing crackdown on activists, journalists, human rights defenders and humanitarian workers” limited its ability to investigate. The Houthis hold at least 59 United Nations staffers and more aid group workers, with the rebels seizing electronics at U.N. offices in recent days. The Iranian-backed rebels, under economic pressure, also increasingly have been threatening Saudi Arabia in recent weeks as well.
“I didn’t actually believe that it was possible that the U.S. would carry out an airstrike on the same compound, resulting in a significant level of civilian harm,” said Kristine Beckerle, Amnesty’s deputy Middle East and North Africa director. “It kind of defies belief that the U.S. would not have known.”
The U.S. airstrikes against the Houthis began over the rebels’ attacks on shipping under U.S. President Joe Biden. However, the attacks sharply escalated under Trump’s Operation Rough Rider, hitting some 1,000 targets in Yemen.
Those strikes hit power stations, mobile phone infrastructure and military targets in Yemen. However, activists say the attacks also killed civilians, particularly an April strike on an oil depot that killed more than 70 people.
Airwars, a United Kingdom-based group studying casualties in aerial warfare, believes strikes in the Operation Rough Rider killed at least 224 civilians during the weekslong campaign, nearly as many civilians killed over more than 20 years of American strikes on the country.
U.S. Army Gen. Michael Kurilla, CENTCOM’s former commander, promised details on civilian casualties in the Yemen campaign “absolutely” would be made public during congressional testimony in June, though that has yet to happen.
“One of the things that was relatively devastating is again you’re talking about people who left Ethiopia to travel to Yemen because they’re trying to get to the Gulf” to earn money for their families back home, Beckerle said. “They have to have their family send money to them in Yemen to deal with the effects of the injury.”
The 60-plus African migrant deaths in the April 28 Saada province prison strike represent collateral damage where detained civilians seeking economic opportunities became casualties in a conflict unrelated to their migration journey.
Amnesty International’s war crime investigation call elevates the incident beyond tragic mistake to potential violation of international humanitarian law requiring accountability and possible prosecution of responsible military commanders.
The April 28 timing places the strike during Operation Rough Rider’s peak intensity when Trump administration authorized aggressive targeting of Houthi infrastructure in response to Red Sea shipping disruptions affecting global commerce.
The Red Sea corridor shipping disruption context explains U.S. military intervention where Houthi attacks on commercial vessels threatened international trade routes connecting Asia, Europe, and the Middle East through the strategic waterway.
The Israel-Hamas war linkage indicates Houthi attacks on shipping were solidarity actions supporting Palestinians, with the Yemeni rebels expanding the Gaza conflict into regional confrontation by targeting vessels they claimed had Israeli connections.
U.S. Central Command’s lack of explanation for the prison strike months after the incident suggests either ongoing investigation that prevents public comment or reluctance to acknowledge targeting failures that killed dozens of detained migrants.
Captain Tim Hawkins’ promise to “release the assessment results for Operation Rough Rider soon” delays accountability while allowing time for internal reviews that may minimize casualty figures or justify targeting decisions.
The two 250-pound GBU-39 small-diameter precision-guided bombs represent advanced munitions designed for accuracy minimizing collateral damage, making the high civilian death toll particularly troubling given the weapons’ capabilities.
The Ethiopian migrant survivors’ accounts that “no Houthi fighters posted inside the building” contradicts any military necessity justification, suggesting faulty intelligence or disregard for civilian presence led to the strike authorization.
The “indiscriminate attack” designation by Amnesty asserts the strike violated distinction principle requiring combatants separate military objectives from civilian targets, a fundamental rule of armed conflict.
The international law prohibition on striking hospitals and prisons unless used for military purposes establishes legal framework for war crimes prosecution, with civilian facility protections requiring clear evidence of military use before attacks.
The 2022 Saudi-led coalition strike on the same compound killing 66 detainees creates precedent suggesting U.S. intelligence knew the facility held migrants, making the 2025 strike on an identical target harder to excuse as intelligence failure.
The Houthi guards shooting dead 16 fleeing detainees and wounding 50 after the 2022 strike demonstrates the rebels’ brutality toward migrants, though this doesn’t justify subsequent attacks on facilities known to hold vulnerable civilian populations.
The 59 detained U.N. staffers and seized electronics at U.N. offices illustrate Houthi paranoia and control tactics that complicate humanitarian operations and independent investigations of incidents like the prison strike.
Kristine Beckerle’s disbelief that “the U.S. would carry out an airstrike on the same compound” after the 2022 incident articulates the incomprehensibility of repeating targeting errors with known civilian harm consequences.
The Operation Rough Rider escalation under Trump hitting 1,000 targets represents dramatic expansion from Biden-era limited strikes, with the aggressive approach prioritizing Houthi degradation over civilian harm mitigation.
The power station and mobile phone infrastructure targeting indicates campaign objectives beyond military sites to include civilian infrastructure degradation, a strategy critics characterize as collective punishment of Yemeni populations.
The 224 civilian deaths during Operation Rough Rider matching nearly 20 years of previous American strikes demonstrates the campaign’s unprecedented lethality, with concentrated intensity producing casualties that decades of intermittent operations caused.
General Michael Kurilla’s June congressional testimony promise to release civilian casualty data “absolutely” followed by months of silence suggests political sensitivity about the figures that contradicts transparency commitments.
The Ethiopian migrants’ desperate economic migration fleeing poverty to seek Gulf employment as construction workers, domestic servants, or laborers illustrates how global inequality drives dangerous journeys through war zones.
The families sending money to injured survivors in Yemen for medical treatment inverts the intended migration purpose where workers planned to send remittances home, with strike consequences creating financial burdens on already impoverished families.
