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Campaigners reacted angrily on Monday to removal of the Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen from a list of groups violating children's rights, in a report by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
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"The Coalition to Support Legitimacy in Yemen will be delisted for the violation of killing and maiming, following a sustained significant decrease… due to air strikes," said the UN's newly-published annual report on children in conflict zones.
It said the toll had fallen since an agreement signed in March 2019.
The coalition intervened in 2015 in Yemen to support the government against Iran-backed Huthi rebels. It has been widely blamed for civilian casualties in bombing raids that campaigners say have pushed the country deeper into crisis.
Human Rights Watch denounced Guterres for dropping the coalition from the "list of shame," saying he was "ignoring the UN's own evidence of continued grave violations against children."
The Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict said that "by absolving the Saudi– and Emirati-led coalition of any responsibility for killing and maiming children in Yemen, the UN Secretary-General has left children vulnerable to further attacks."
It said the coalition was responsible for the death or injury of 222 children in Yemen last year.
Inger Ashing of Save the Children called it a "shocking decision" by Guterres.
But the secretary general's envoy for children and armed conflict, Virginia Gamba, said the URead More – Source
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