A/HRC/33/38 29. On 20 August 2015, air strikes by the coalition forces hit homes located between 5 and 120 metres from the palace of former President Saleh in Taizz, killing 53 civilians, including 28 children and 12 women, and injuring 11 others. Local residents and eyewitnesses indicated that the palace may have been being used for military purposes by the Popular Committees at the time of the attack. If that was the case, then the palace may have been a military objective. Nonetheless, OHCHR did not obtain any information regarding precautionary measures that may have been taken; in particular, according to residents who spoke to OHCHR, no warning was issued to local residents. 30. On 24 January 2016, a judge and seven members of his family, including three women and three children, were killed and five others injured when an air strike by the coalition forces hit their three-storey house in the Nahdah neighbourhood on the outskirts of Sana’a city and destroyed eight neighbouring houses. According to witnesses, including two bodyguards who survived the attack, an aircraft had hovered over the judge’s house and, after a few minutes, two missiles had struck the house, causing the reported casualties. Attacks on public and private infrastructure11 (d) 31. OHCHR investigated numerous aerial attacks by the coalition forces against civilian objects that resulted in the killing and serious injury of large number of civilians and the partial or total destruction of public and private infrastructure. 32. On 24 July 2015, a coalition air strike hit the residential compounds of the Mokha Steam Power Plant in Mokha District, Taizz, killing 73 civilians, including 13 women and 11 children, and injuring 93 others. Eyewitnesses told OHCHR that the two residential compounds were being used to house the plant workers and their family members. One of the compounds lies approximately 500 metres from the power plant while the second is about 1 kilometre away. OHCHR was informed that the aerial attacks struck two apartment buildings situated nearby, causing substantial damage. Witnesses stressed that there were no military targets within the vicinity of the compound at the time of the attack. (e) Allegations of the use of cluster bombs 33. OHCHR found credible allegations concerning the use of cluster bombs by the coalition forces and the use of landmines by the pro-Houthi armed groups and pro-Saleh army units. OHCHR notes that neither Yemen nor Saudi Arabia are parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions; Yemen has ratified the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction. Although the use of cluster bombs has not been banned by those States, their use in civilian residential areas, particularly in the absence of precautionary measures, may amount to violations of international humanitarian law, in the light of the inherently indiscriminate nature of such weapons.12 34. In December 2015, allegations of use of cluster bombs by the coalition forces arose. OHCHR verified reports of cluster sub-munitions dropped from the air during attacks on the Hajjah districts of Bakeel al-Meer, Hairan and Haradh. OHCHR interviewed victims and witnesses and carried out field visits to the affected areas and confirmed that six civilians had been wounded as a result of alleged cluster-bomb explosions. The use of such bombs was documented across large expanses of agricultural land in Hajjah (see figure III). OHCHR looked into allegations of the use of cluster ammunitions by the coalition forces 11 12 10 See annex I, section C, for information on other attacks on public and private infrastructure documented by OHCHR. See International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Practice Relating to Rule 81: Restrictions on the Use of Landmines (2016) and ICRC, Rule 71: Weapons That Are by Nature Indiscriminate.