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The US bombing campaign of Yemen under Donald Trump led to the deaths of almost as many civilians in two months as in the previous 23 years of US attacks on Islamists and militants in the country.
An analysis of Operation Rough Rider by the monitoring group Airwars has concluded that 224 civilians were killed between March and the end of the campaign in May, compared with 258 between 2002 and 2024.
Airwars argues that the higher death rate after 33 strikes signals a change in policy on the part of the US and is a potential sign for what could happen in Iran, if Trump decides to join the Israeli bombing campaign against the country.
“This campaign sets the tone for Trump at war, and for what allies can do. With the US poised for escalation, we have to understand the Yemen campaign to understand what the future holds,” said Emily Tripp, the director of Airwars.
Deliberately targeting civilians in a manner that is considered not proportional to any military advantage gained is considered a war crime according to the Geneva conventions, though the doctrine has been stretched in recent conflicts, most notably Israel’s assault on Gaza, where there have been individual incidents of more than 100 civilians killed.
In the past, the US president has set a limit for the maximum number of civilian casualties that would be tolerated without special approval being granted, according to The War Lawyers, a book by the academic Craig Jones of Newcastle University.
Operation Rough Rider, a bombing campaign against the Houthi rebels, began in March in an effort to stop attacks on merchant shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, in the aftermath of attacks conducted under the previous president. It cost an estimated $1bn (£740m) in its first month of operation.
Trump described the Biden campaign as “pathetically weak”. Meanwhile, the text messages between senior US officials on the Signal app discussing the beginning of the bombing were accidentally shared with a journalist.
The two most deadly attacks recorded by Airwars were in April. The monitor concluded that at least 84 civilians were killed on 17 April when the US bombed Ras Isa port near Hodeidah in the evening, saying it was targeting oil facilities.
Airwars reaches its casualty count by examining reports of each incident by relevant authorities and in the media – as well as death notices put up on Facebook and other social media by relatives of the deceased.
Two young boys, Fadel Fawwaz Ali al-Musq and Mohammad Ali Saleh Asaad al-Musq, were killed together after a family member, a driver, had brought them to the port while he was working, according to Facebook postings.
The family of a 48-year-old driver, Nabil Yahya, reported that he was killed when the fuel tanker he was driving burst into flames after the airstrike. “That truck was all he had,” said his younger brother Sultan Yahya in a Guardian report last month.
A day after the incident, the local branch of the Red Crescent Society posted that the airstrikes occurred in two waves. After the first wave of bombing, the plane remained “still flying overhead” and it struck again after first responders arrived.
At the time, the US Centcom military command said that US forces had taken action “to eliminate this source of fuel for the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists” and that the strike “was not intended to harm the people of Yemen”.
The second most deadly attack recorded by Airwars occurred on 28 April 2025. Airwars counted that 68 civilians housed in a remand detention centre at Saada were killed and at least 47 injured by alleged US airstrikes in the morning.
The centre primarily held migrants coming from African countries and was believed to be holding 115 people at the time of the strike. Bodies were seen on television and there were graphic photographs after the attack.
In response to investigations about the incident, Centcom said in early May that it was “aware of the claims of civilian casualties” and was assessing them, but there has been no apparent update from the US military since.
The US has been attacking targets in Yemen since 2002, when a targeted drone strike killed six members of al-Qaida, and the first time civilians were recorded killed was in 2009, when 49 were reported killed following a cruise missile attack that had been aimed at an al-Qaeda camp.
Operation Rough Rider came to an end in May, when the US and the Houthis reached agreement. The US said there had been 1,000 strikes at Houthi targets. The Yemeni rebels, who are anti-Israel and aligned with Iran, said they would stop targeting merchant shipping in return for an end to US bombing.
Earlier this week, the Houthis fired a handful of ballistic missiles at Israel in support of Iran. One struck the West Bank, wounding five Palestinians.
