SAADA — Amnesty International called for a United States air strike on a migrant detention center in Yemen to be investigated as a possible war crime. The April 28, 2025 strike on the facility in Saada, in northwestern Yemen, killed at least 68 detainees and injured 47.

The detention center had operated for years as part of a larger prison complex. Representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations had previously visited the compound and found no evidence it was being used for military purposes.

"The Trump administration's approach to its air strikes in Yemen from March to May 2025 should have set off alarm bells in the USA and around the world," said Nadia Dar, director of Amnesty International USA. "Instead, the US administration has systematically weakened safeguards while simultaneously displaying a dangerous disregard for the lives of civilians endangered by armed conflicts."

Amnesty interviewed six Ethiopian men wounded in the strike. Five were unable to work because of their injuries, and most depended on financial support from relatives. Four of the interviewed men remained in Yemen and two had returned to Ethiopia.

One survivor identified as Jirata, 30, said he lost one of his legs in the strike and had a metal rod inserted in the other. "I have lost hope, and I have nothing left that keeps me going. The US government caused all this, and as a result 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," he said.

After the strike, a US defense official said the military was assessing reports of civilian casualties. A year after the strike, the US military's Central Command had not publicly released the findings of any investigation or announced whether accountability measures would be taken.

Amnesty said the Yemen strike was among the deadliest civilian incidents linked to a United States strike that it had documented in recent years. The organization said a United States strike on a school in Minab, Iran, on March 16 killed 156 people, including more than 120 children. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said a separate investigation into another United States strike in Minab was continuing.

Amnesty said its investigation found that the United States had failed to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian harm. The organization urged Washington to carry out prompt, transparent and independent investigations into strikes in Yemen and Iran, and called on the US Congress to increase oversight of military operations and ensure reparations for civilians harmed.