The United States has formally acknowledged killing at least 153 civilians in three attacks in Yemen during 2025, including two incidents with some of the highest civilian death tolls Washington has admitted in recent years.
The figures are contained in the Pentagon’s latest annual report on civilian casualties caused by US military operations, mandated by Congress under Section 1057. The report concedes that US strikes killed five civilians in Sana’a on 6 April, 80 at Ras Isa port on 17 April, and 68 at a detention centre in Saada on 28 April.
The US has historically accepted relatively few civilian casualties from its operations in Yemen. Before the latest report, Washington had acknowledged only two civilian-harm incidents during more than two decades of bombing there.
The deadliest admitted attack occurred at Ras Isa port in Hodeidah governorate. The Pentagon concluded that 80 civilians were killed and another 171 wounded when US aircraft repeatedly struck the facility. Most of the victims were reportedly port workers. Human Rights Watch subsequently described the attack as an apparent war crime.
Eleven days later, US aircraft struck a Houthi-run detention facility in Saada. The Pentagon accepted that 68 civilians were killed and 47 injured. The facility held mainly African migrants travelling through Yemen, with around 115 people believed to have been detained there at the time. At least two GBU-39 bombs were used and Amnesty International called for the strike to be investigated as a possible war crime.
The April attacks came during a seven-week US campaign against the Houthis in which more than 1,000 strikes were reportedly conducted.
The Pentagon’s admissions represent only part of the civilian harm alleged during the campaign. Fifteen further incidents remain under US review, and the casualty advocacy group Airwars says another 12 cases it recorded are not accounted for in the annual report.
The YS report also raises questions about the completeness of US civilian-casualty reporting. No civilian harm was conceded for US operations in Syria during 2025, though there is credible evidence of US harm there.
Nor does the report acknowledge civilian casualties from US strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in Latin America and the Caribbean, despite scores of such attacks since September 2025. The Pentagon states only that it found no incidents in which civilian casualties were more likely than not caused by US operations in the region.
The US remains unusual among military powers in publishing an annual assessment of civilian harm, and the existence of such reporting offers a degree of transparency rarely provided by other states. Yet the Yemen figures also expose the limits of that system.
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