The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor condemned the assassination of a leader in the Yemeni Islah Party, Abdul Raqeeb Qazi', in the al-Dhali' governorate, in the south of the country, last Thursday, by unknown gunmen.

In a press release, it described the incident as "a new episode in the series of extremely serious security deterioration in Yemen," in the clear absence of the role for the security authorities and procedures of prosecutions.

The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor indicated that Qazi’ is the third leader of the Islah Party that subjects to assassination in al-Dhali', where unknown persons had previously assassinated the leader in the Party’s Information and Culture Department, journalist Zaki al-Saqldi in October 2018, and the leader Khaled Ghayman, who was assassinated on July 25, 2019, with conflicting accounts about the authorities responsible for carrying out these assassinations, and the absence of any serious formal procedures by the Yemeni authorities to reveal the identity of the perpetrators.

According to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor follow-up, dozens of leaders and activists of the Yemeni Islah Party were killed, as well as a number of leaders of armed factions fighting the Houthi group have been killed by unknown gunmen in separate assassinations.

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said that, despite the gravity of these assassinations targeting political, military and religious activists, which are included in war crimes, however, the official position of the authorities did not rise to the required level of accountability and urgent action to stop the state of lawlessness that has been going on for years, stressing that the internal conflict has had a great impact in diminishing the true role of the Yemeni security services.

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor stressed that the repetition of assassinations - specifically in the southern governorates of the country - amid local inaction in accountability procedures and the detection and prosecution of perpetrators, encourages those outlaw gangs to repeat those operations in the absence of a judicial and security deterrent.

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor expressed its concern over the responsibility of the parties to the conflict to carry out these assassinations, especially with the availability of highly credible reports that local armed groups carried out numerous assassinations under the direct guidance of countries involved in the Yemeni conflict.

It called on the Yemeni authorities to work hard on the security and judicial levels to stop the assassinations and to effectively investigate previous assassinations, expose the perpetrators, hold them accountable and ensure that they do not escape punishment.

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor renewed its call for the United Nations and the international community to take legal and moral responsibility towards what is happening in Yemen, and to start practical steps to stop the bloodshed that has been going on for nearly 5 years and called for the formation of a UN investigation committee to look into all assassination operations in preparation for identifying the perpetrators and the entities behind them.