Yemeni cabinet ends UN human rights mandate after report says Saudi's responsible for majority of civilian deaths

Sputnik
Thu, 27 Sep 2018 18:02 UTC

© Modern Diplomacy

The Yemeni cabinet on Thursday announced the end of the mandate in the country of the UN human rights agency's group of experts over its criticism of violence by its allies, as reported by Al Jazeera news channel.

"The mandate of the UN Human Rights Council's group of experts will be discontinued," the cabinet said in a statement, cited by Al Jazeera news channel.

Yemen's internationally-recognized government accused the experts of pro-rebel bias and attempts to politicize humanitarian crisis in the country, hit by five years of civil war.

The monitoring group published a 41-page report in August, accusing the government's Gulf allies of being behind most civilian casualties. It said the Saudi coalition made little effort to minimize civilian deaths, launching airstrikes at residential areas, weddings, and clinics.

Comment: Yemen's cabinet will be hard-pressed to deny the Saudi coalition's responsibility for the deaths of millions via starvation and the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure:

While everyone's eyes are on Syria's Idlib, US continues to decimate YemenTo date, the US-backed Saudi-led coalition has struck well over 100 hospitals, as well as wedding parties, refugee camps, food trucks, factories, transport routes, agricultural land, residential areas, and schools, to name a few. Yes, you read that right. Yemen, with only 2.8 percent of its land being cultivated, is actively targeted by the US-backed coalition. According to Martha Mundy, professor emeritus at the London School of Economics, "to hit that small amount of agricultural land, you have to target it."

See also:

• 5 reasons the nightmarish Saudi-led, Western-backed war on Yemen should never be forgotten - In pictures
• Starving the country into submission: Saudi-led coalition is deliberately targeting Yemeni food supplies
• Genocide, war crimes and lies: Saudi-Western coalition is brutally suppressing a popular uprising in Yemen
• UN: Saudi coalition airstrikes responsible for majority of civilian deaths in Yemen