United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The United Nations has removed the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen from a blacklist of child rights violators after Riyadh angrily protested the decision. Saudi Arabia had demanded that a UN report be "corrected" after it concluded that the coalition was responsible for 60 percent of the 785 children killed in Yemen last year.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon agreed to a Saudi proposal to review the facts and cases cited in the report jointly with the coalition, his spokesman Stephan Dujarric said.
"Pending the conclusions of the joint review, the secretary-general removes the listing of the coalition in the report's annex," he added.
Saudi Ambassador Abdullah al-Mouallimi told reporters that the coalition felt "vindicated," declaring that the removal of the coalition from the list was "final and unconditional." The ambassador had earlier said he was "deeply disappointed" by the report, describing the number of child deaths blamed on the coalition as "wildly exaggerated." Mouallimi met with UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson at UN headquarters to discuss the listing.
The coalition launched an air campaign in support of Yemen's President Abedrabbo Mansour in March 2015 to push back Huthi rebels after they seized the capital Sanaa and many parts of the country. The war has left some 6,400 people dead, with more than 80 percent of the population in desperate need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN. The report was released Thursday as the United Nations sought progress in talks held in Kuwait to try to end the war.
