Charities Demand Blacklisting Saudi over Killing Yemeni Children
Local Editor
Charity organizations called on the UN to blacklist the Saudi-led coalition over serious violations of children's rights in Yemen as statistics reveal massive child fatalities caused by the ongoing war against the impoverished nation.
A joint report prepared by Save the Children and Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict stated that the Saudi-led coalition committed "grave violations against children" in a series of 23 attacks on civilian sites, including hospitals and schools, in 2016, the Guardian reported on Thursday.
The campaigners urged the UN to highlight the crimes committed by the Saudi-led alliance, including massive killing and maiming of Yemeni children, in its annual report on child rights violations in conflict, expected to be released in August.
The annual UN report incorporates a blacklist of countries and groups that have committed violations such as killing or maiming children, recruiting children, abduction, physical violence, or attacking schools or hospitals.
In 2016, Saudi Arabia forced the UN to omit the coalition's name from the blacklist, after the annual report revealed that the coalition was responsible for 60 percent of child deaths and injuries in Yemen in 2015. The decision drew criticism from rights groups which accused the UN of succumbing to Riyadh's political pressure.
According to some statistics, as a result of the Saudi-led war on Yemen, over 4,000 children have been killed or injured, while a further 2.2 million under five are acutely malnourished. Meanwhile, a growing cholera epidemic has also affected over 118,000 children.
In a single Saudi-led airstrike on a market in Mastaba district in February 2016, 25 children were killed. In October, the Saudi warplanes targeted a funeral in the capital city of Sana'a, killing 100 people and wounding 500, with the number of children killed unknown.
Save the Children warned that the UN will set a dangerous precedent for international conflicts if it does not include the Saudi-led coalition on this year's list.
"If there is no accountability, if groups that are fighting think they can use their political influence - and if they are powerful enough and rich enough, then they can get away with killing and injuring children, or bombing schools and hospitals - it sets a really dangerous precedent not just for Yemen but for conflicts around the world," said Caroline Anning, senior conflict and humanitarian advocacy adviser at Save the Children.
"[Children] are facing threats from all sides, they have got the threat of airstrikes from above, which are continuous - just in the past few weeks we have seen [bombs] landing on marketplaces where civilians have been killed," she added.
"Huge numbers of children are on the brink of starvation. The airstrikes have contributed to the collapse of the health system, there are huge numbers of kids who cannot get any healthcare, there is a massive cholera epidemic spreading across the country, millions of children are out of schools," Anning pointed out.
The charities argue that inclusion of Saudi Arabia on the UN's blacklist would make it harder for the US and the UK to continue arms exports or diplomatic support for Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia has been leading a destructive military campaign against Yemen since March 2015.
The campaign has seriously damaged the country's infrastructure. Local Yemeni sources have put the death toll from the Saudi war at over 12,000, including many women and children.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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