war crimes and other serious violations of international law. The armed group calling itself Islamic State (IS) carried out direct attacks against civilians in government-held areas of the capital, Damascus, using suicide bombers, and mounted attacks using suspected chemical agents, conducted sieges, and committed unlawful killings in areas it controlled. Other armed groups indiscriminately shelled areas controlled by Syrian government or Kurdish forces, killing and injuring civilians. Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East, remained mired in armed conflict between an array of Yemeni and foreign military forces which continued to exhibit a wanton disregard for the lives of civilians, carrying out indiscriminate attacks using bombs, artillery shells and other imprecise weapons, and directly attacking civilians and civilian structures or imperilling civilians by firing weapons from residential areas. The Huthi armed group and allied army units loyal to Yemen’s former President Ali Abdullah Saleh indiscriminately shelled areas of Ta’iz city, killing and injuring civilians, and blocked the entry of food and vital medical supplies, causing a humanitarian emergency. The Huthis also engaged in indiscriminate cross-border shelling of civilian areas in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, a Saudi Arabia-led military coalition of Arab state forces dedicated to restoring Yemen’s internationally recognized government conducted a relentless campaign of air strikes on areas controlled or contested by the Huthis and their allies, killing and injuring thousands of civilians. Many of the attacks were indiscriminate or disproportionate; others appeared to directly target civilians and civilian objects, such as schools and market places. Aerial bombing repeatedly struck hospitals. Some coalition attacks amounted to war crimes. The UN reported that more than 2 million children in Yemen were acutely malnourished, and 18.8 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance or protection at the end of the year. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of civilians remained caught in the midst of Amnesty International Report 2016/17 armed conflict in Iraq. Iraqi government forces, mostly comprising Shi’a paramilitary militias and Sunni tribal fighters, and Kurdish Regional Government forces, backed by air strikes and other military support from a USled international coalition, recaptured Falluja and other cities formerly controlled by IS. At the end of the year, the parties were engaged in an offensive aimed at driving IS forces from Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city. All sides committed atrocities. Government forces and allied paramilitary militias committed war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law, mostly against members of the Sunni Arab community, including extrajudicial executions and other unlawful killings, torture and deliberate destruction of civilian homes. They subjected hundreds of men and boys to enforced disappearance and took no steps to clarify the fate and whereabouts of thousands who remained disappeared after being seized by government forces and allied militias in previous years. In areas it controlled, IS continued to carry out execution-style killings of local people who opposed them or whom they suspected of collaborating with government forces. IS fighters punished individuals they accused of failing to comply with their codes of dress and behaviour, carried out abductions, used torture and inflicted floggings and other cruel punishments, subjected Yazidi women and girls to sexual violence, including sexual slavery, and indoctrinated and recruited boys, including Yazidi captives, and used them in fighting. As government forces advanced, IS forces prevented civilians from fleeing conflict areas, using them as human shields and shooting those who sought to escape and punishing their families. In other areas, including the capital, Baghdad, IS carried out suicide bombings and other deadly attacks that were indiscriminate or deliberately targeted civilians in crowded markets, Shi’a religious shrines and other public spaces, killing and injuring hundreds. Elsewhere, Libya remained torn and divided by armed conflict, five years after the 49