Amnesty renews its criticism of taking Saudi Arabia off blacklist of child rights violators

Amnesty International on Friday renewed its condemnation of the United Nations removing the name of the Saudi-led aggression in Yemen from the blacklist of violators of children’s rights.

“The United Nations Secretary-General (Antonio Guterres) removed the Saudi-led coalition from the list of killing and maiming of children, knowing that (the coalition) killed and maimed 222 children in Yemen in 2019,” the organization said.

The organization released a video clip of a Yemeni child visiting his martyr’s brothers.

Last Monday, the United Nations issued a report on violations against children and armed conflicts for 2019, without the name of the US-Saudi aggression coalition that has carried out daily raids on Yemen since March 2015.

Guterres justified the removal of the name of the coalition and Saudi Arabia from the list, that the coalition applied a set of measures aimed at protecting children during the implementation of its operations, which did not happen on the ground, especially since the coalition had on the same day, the UN report issued, targeting a car in Sa’ada that resulted in killing 13 civilians, including children.

In a statement on Monday, Human Rights Watch (New York-based) criticized the lack of inclusion of the coalition in the international list of violators of children’s rights, despite “grave ongoing violations against the children of Yemen.”