The United States carries direct responsibility for the school bus bombing that killed 40 children in Yemen last week, according to munitions experts who found that the bomb used was sold to Saudi Arabia by the State Department.
CNNreported late Friday that experts and Yemeni journalists had found that the bus exploded after being hit by a Lockheed Martin-produced laser-guided MK 82 bomb.
"This American-made bomb killed them, killed the innocent children," journalist Ahmad Algohbary said this week, even before CNN verified the report. "Most of these victims were children. Your bombs are killing victims here, are killing children."
The Trump administration reinstated sales of laser-guided missiles to the Saudis soon after President Donald Trump's inauguration, months after a bombing by the Saudi coalition of a funeral hall killed 155 Yemenis and led to the Obama administration's suspension of arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
A total of 51 people were killed in the attack, and 79 were wounded.
The bombing was denounced by outspoken critics of the United States' support of the Saudi-led coalition that has led an airstrike campaign in Yemen since 2015, in support of the government's war against the Houthis. The U.S. has provided fuel and tactical support to the coalition as well as weapons.
The report confirms what many Yemeni civilians already knew, as evidenced by mourners at the victims' funeral carrying signs that read "America kills Yemeni children," according to the Middle East Eye.
On social media, critics doubled down on their condemnation of the United States' support for the Saudi coalition in Yemen's civil war, in which 15,000 Yemeni civilians have been killed and injured.
