(c) 2018, The Washington Post · Sudarsan Raghavan ·  Jul 26, 2018 - 6:44 PM  RAQAH, Yemen - The ground where the wedding tent once stood was covered with children’s slippers, broken musical instruments, pieces of festive clothing and other detritus of destroyed lives. Teeth, still attached to the jawbone, lay near some tattered decorations.   

An airstrike hit the wedding in this remote mountain village on April 23, killing 22 civilians including eight children, and injuring dozens, according to interviews with 17 villagers in late May. More than three years into Yemen’s civil war, over 16,000 civilians have been killed and injured, the vast majority by airstrikes, the U.N. human rights office estimates, adding that the figures are likely to be far higher.

The deaths are continuing unabated, with as many as hundreds of casualties per month, despite assurances by a U.S.-backed regional coalition to better protect civilians amid mounting criticism within the United States and the international community.