THE Saudi-led coalition killed and injured more than half of the children harmed in Yemen’s war last year, the UN says.
The UK has faced repeated criticism for arming Saudi Arabia, issuing £3.3 billion of export licences for weaponry since it entered the conflict.
It has also dismissed claims the coalition has broken international humanitarian law by targeting hospitals, weddings and even funeral parties.
Now a draft report from the UN leaked to reporters says it has verified 1340 casualties and attributed 683 – 51 per cent – to coalition attacks, in contrast to 414 killed or injured by Houthis, six by Daesh and one by al Qaeda.
Almost 75 per cent of the 52 assaults on schools and hospitals were also attributed to the international alliance.
The draft paper on children and armed conflict echoes similar findings from last year when the coalition was put on a UN blacklist for violating child rights.
It was subsequently removed by then secretary-general Ban Ki-moon after Saudi Arabia and other coalition supporters threatened to stop funding many UN programmes, but Ban stood by the report, which said the UN verified a total of 1953 youngsters killed and injured in Yemen in 2015, marking a six-fold rise on the previous year.
Reports suggest officials now intend to repeat the blacklisting.
A spokesperson for UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said the report’s contents are still under discussion and no blacklisting decision has been taken.
Saudi Arabia’s UN Mission said the coalition maintains that “there is no justification whatsoever for including its name in the annex of the secretary-general’s report on children and armed conflict”.
Meanwhile, the charity Human Rights Watch has called for Houthi authorities in Yemen's capital Sanaa to release activist Hisham al-Omeisy, who was detained on Monday.
The 38-year-old has used social media to report on and analyse strikes by the coalition and problems faced by aid agencies and civilians. His whereabouts are unknown and Human Rights Watch says activists and journalists have been targeted by both Houthi and Saudi-supported government forces.
Its Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson said: “Yemen more than ever needs activists like Hisham al-Omeisy to bring attention to the devastation that war, famine, and disease have wrought on the country and its people.
“Houthi authorities should immediately release al-Omeisy and return him safely to his family.”
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