The United Nations has blacklisted the Saudi Arabia-led coalition for maiming and killing scores of children with its campaign in Yemen.
According to an annual report on children and armed conflict released by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the coalition was responsible for 60 percent of a total of 510 deaths and 667 woundings in 2015 after its campaign began in March—a six-fold increase, as Human Rights Watch (HRW) separately pointed out.
“Grave violations against children increased dramatically as a result of the escalating conflict,” Ban said in the report (pdf).
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The coalition now joins other actors involved in the civil war, including the Houthis, Yemeni forces, and pro-government militia, that have also been placed on the blacklist of states and armed groups who violate children’s rights amid conflict.
International human rights groups warned in March that the flow of weapons to Saudi Arabia has “facilitated appalling crimes” in Yemen, and that the U.S. and other Western nations are complicit in the deaths of children there due to their continued allegiance with the Persian Gulf nation.
As HRW Finberg Fellow Kristine Beckerle wrote on Thursday, “The conflict in Yemen has taken a devastating toll on the country’s children. In order to help end these grave violations, the international community should take immediate action, including suspending arms sales to Saudi Arabia and forming an international mechanism to investigate violations by all sides.”
The UN report blacklists those that “engage in the recruitment and use of children, sexual violence against children, the killing and maiming of children, attacks on schools and/or hospitals and attacks or threats of attacks against protected personnel, and the abduction of children.”
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