YEMEN Press Agency

JMPs condemn taking Saudi Arabia off blacklist of child rights violators

SANAA, June 19 (YPA) – The Joint Meeting Parties (JMPs) strongly condemned the UN Secretary-General’s decision to remove the name of Saudi-led aggression coalition from the list of shame for violators of children’s rights.

The joint parties affirmed in a statement that striking out the United Nations name from Saudi Arabia from its annual report exposes its complicity and ignorance of the crimes of aggression against the children of Yemen, and that this behavior confirms its involvement and participation in those crimes and its lack of commitment to the humanitarian standards that draws attention on the world.

The statement pointed out that the Secretary-General of the United Nations made clear in his report the responsibility of the Saudi-led aggression coalition for the killing of 222 children in Yemen during 2019, but removed them from the list of parties responsible for grave violations against children, throwing all international laws and covenants behind his back.

“This calls into question its credibility and puts the entire mechanism it follows into question and suspicion, makes the Secretary-General’s approach to the list inconsistent with his call to work for human rights and raises questions about his commitment to publicly hold states accountable for repeated violations.”

The statement pointed out that the issuance of this decision came in conjunction with the Saudi-led coalition aggression’s committing a new massacre against women and children civilians in the Sheda district of Saada, which resulted in the killing of 13 civilians, including children and women, after two raids targeting a car they were traveling on the highway of the district.

The Joint Meeting Parties considered removing the name of Saudi Arabia from the list of violators of children’s rights, giving the green light for the aggression alliance to commit more crimes against the children of Yemen.

The Parties held the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the United Nations organization fully responsible for any crimes and violations against the children of Yemen by the US-backed Saudi-led Coalition, stressing that the step taken by the United Nations is a crime that cannot be erased except by reversing its paid decision.