UN draws fire for removing Saudis from child rights violators blacklist
The United Nations is under fire from various human rights groups for deciding to remove Saudi Arabia from a blacklist of child rights violators despite being blamed for the killing of hundreds of Yemeni children.
On Tuesday, Human Rights Watch accused UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of succumbing to “political manipulation” from Riyadh to remove the Saudi regime from the list. Amnesty International also decried the “blatant pandering”, which it claimed “damages the credibility of the UN as a whole,” and Oxfam dubbed the decision as “a moral failure.”
On Monday, Ban said that he has accepted “a proposal by Saudi Arabia that the United Nations and the Saudi-led coalition review jointly the cases and numbers” cited in the Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC) report, published last Thursday, which said the Saudi coalition was responsible for 60 percent of child casualties in Yemen last year, when it killed 510 children and injured 667 others.
The report noted that the Saudi military conducted half of its aerial attacks on schools and medical facilities. “Grave violations against children increased dramatically as a result of the escalating conflict,” it said.
Saudi Ambassador to the UN Abdallah al-Mouallimi said Ban’s decision to remove the coalition from the blacklist was “irreversible and unconditional.”
“We were wrongly placed on the list. We know that this removal is final,” he said, adding that the casualty toll given in the report was “exaggerated.”
In relation to rights groups’ response to the decisions, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric noted that a final decision has not been made and that the kingdom had been removed from the list pending an upcoming review. "I don't think it's a reversal of policy," he told reporters. "We will see what the review is and we will adjust the list as needed."
Saudi Arabia launched its military aggression against Yemen on March 26, 2015 in a bid to bring Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi — a staunch ally of Riyadh who resigned from the presidency — back to power. More than 9,400 people have been killed and at least 16,000 others injured since the onset of the aggression.
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