The coalition pledges to investigate a UN accusation of killing children with its raids in Yemen
English - Thursday 18 June 2020 الساعة 11:39 am
Newsyemen, Reuters:
The Saudi-led coalition to fight the Houthis in Yemen asked the United Nations on Tuesday to send them details of accusing them of responsibility for the deaths and injuries of 222 children last year in order to be able to investigate the matter.
The coalition said, in a statement, that it also welcomed the decision of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, to exclude him from the blacklist of the international organization, after several years of the coalition's first accusation of killing and wounding children in Yemen.
Guterres said, in his annual report to the Security Council presented on Monday, that the coalition "will be removed from the list of killing and maiming (children) in the wake of a significant decline in killing and maiming due to air strikes" and the implementation of measures aimed at protecting children.
He added that the coalition had killed and wounded 222 childrenin Yemen last year.
He said that the Houthis bear the responsibility for killing or wounding 313 children, while the Yemeni government bears responsibility for killing or wounding 96 children, and both parties remain on the annual black list of children and armed conflict.
In a statement on Tuesday, the coalition said it takes all allegations of violations of civilians and children's rights seriously.
He added that the coalition is calling on the United Nations to exchange relevant information with him so that he can investigate the allegations attributed to him in the report.
Yemen has been in conflict since the Houthi alliance with Iran ousted the government from the capital, Sanaa, in 2014. The Saudi-led military coalition intervened in 2015 in an attempt to restore the government.
The Saudi-led coalition has been officially on the blacklist for the past three years.
Coalition was recently added to the blacklist in 2016, and former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon excluded them on pending review.
At the time, Ban Ki-moon accused Saudi Arabia of exerting "unacceptable" pressure and unnecessary after sources told Reuters that Riyadh had threatened to cut off some of the United Nations funding. Saudi Arabia has denied Ban's threat to do so.
