Human Rights Groups Assail U.N. Panel’s Yemen Resolution
|
Version 0 of 1. GENEVA — International human rights organizations on Friday criticized the United Nations Human Rights Council for bowing to pressure from Saudi Arabia and passing a resolution on Yemen that shuns an international investigation into reported abuses by Saudi-led forces and Houthi rebels. The Netherlands, backed by a group of other Western countries, had proposed a United Nations inquiry, but the council on Friday adopted by consensus a resolution largely drafted by Saudi Arabia, one of the main belligerents in the conflict. The resolution asked the United Nations human rights office only to provide technical assistance to a Yemeni inquiry set up by the exiled government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi. In a statement, James Lynch, Amnesty International’s Deputy Middle East and North Africa director, called the resolution a “shocking failure” by the Human Rights Council to ensure justice. He said it sent “a message that the international community is not serious about ending the suffering of civilians in Yemen.” The Yemeni government had failed to mount such investigations in the past and did not control large parts of the country, Mr. Lynch added. Putting a spotlight on the brutal toll of the conflict on civilians, the United Nations children’s agency, Unicef, said Friday that at least 505 children had been killed and another 700 wounded since late March, when the fighting escalated. The figures were “conservative,” Christophe Boulierac, a spokesman for the agency, told reporters in Geneva. The United Nations says all parties to the conflict are implicated in abuses, but has blamed Saudi-led airstrikes for most of the civilian casualties, as well as close to three-quarters of child casualties. “By failing to set up a serious U.N. inquiry on war-torn Yemen, the Human Rights Council squandered an important chance to deter further abuses,” Philippe Dam, Geneva deputy director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. |