Children at a camp for internally displaced people near Sanaa (Reuters)

UNITED NATIONS  — The United Nations has called for the creation of an independent international body to investigate a series of human violations in the ongoing war in Yemen.

Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the U.N. human rights chief, said in a statement on Thursday that air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen were responsible for the majority of 3,799 civilian deaths.

Houthi rebels and allied forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who rule the capital, Sanaa, have carried out rocket and mortar attacks on residential areas and used landmines, the U.N. Human Rights body said in its report. These also constituted documented violations that should be addressed, it said.

The U.N. human rights chief said that Yemenis were suffering “unbearably [without] any form of accountability and justice, while those responsible for the violations and abuses against them enjoy impunity.”

Hussein said that “such a manifestly protracted unjust situation must no longer be tolerated by the international community”, and called for the creation of “an international, independent investigative body to carry out comprehensive investigations.”

But the UN stopped short of accusing either side of war crimes, saying that it was for a national or international court to decide.