UN takes Saudi coalition off Yemen list of child violators

In Saudi Arabia fatwas can only be issued by the group of top, government-appointed clerics and are sometimes commissioned by the ruling family to back up its political positions. Mouallimi denied any threat of a possible fatwa.

The ambassador said that keeping the coalition on the blacklist would be “counterproductive for the purposes of the peace negotiations on Yemen”.

Al Moallami described the numbers as “wildly exaggerated” and said that “the casualties are far lower”.

While the Houthis, Yemen government forces and pro-government militia have been on the United Nations blacklist for at least five years, Riyadh on Monday demanded that its name be scrapped from the list, claiming that figures in the CAAC report were “wildly exaggerated”, because the coalition uses “the most up-to-date equipment in precision targeting”.

Ban’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the Secretary-General “is not going to always make everybody happy”.

The UN’s annual blacklist includes parties that “recruit or use children, kill or maim children, commit rape and other forms of sexual violence against children, or engage in attacks on schools and/or hospitals, or abduct children in situations of armed conflict on the agenda of the Security Council”.

Mouallimi said he protested Saudi Arabia’s inclusion on the 2016 list in a face-to-face meeting Monday morning with U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson and said Ban had shown “wisdom” in striking Israel from the tally in 2015. The Arab League, Bahrain and Qatar also welcomed the decision.

The organization recently found evidence indicating that a British-manufactured “BL-755” cluster bomb was used by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition in an attack in al-Khadhra village in Yemen’s Hajjah governorate, approximately six miles from the Saudi Arabia border.

He demanded the report “be corrected immediately so that it does not reflect the accusations against the coalition and Saudi Arabia in particular”.

Human Rights Watch strongly condemned Ban’s office for amending the report, noting that the United Nations itself had documented the casualties caused by the Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen.

The 40-page report – which was issued last week and primarily written by Leila Zerrougui, the United Nations chief’s special representative for children and armed conflict – claimed the coalition was responsible for about 60 percent of 1,953 child deaths and injuries in Yemen since previous year.

“In the prisoners committee, an agreement was made on the unconditional release of children”, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said in a statement.

The UN document also said that Saudi-led actions resulted in some 667 child injuries.

Be Civil – It’s OK to have a difference in opinion but there’s no need to be a jerk. Bangladesh’s mission told Reuters that their foreign minister contacted Ban’s office prior to the reversal while on an official visit to Saudi Arabia.