UN Report: Saudis Killed 502 Children in Yemen in Past Year

A draft version of a new UN Security Council report on the Saudi War in Yemen has been obtained by Foreign Policy, who are reporting that it accuses the Saudi coalition of “grave violations” of human rights, particularly against children in Yemen.

The report covered the past year, and counted 502 children killed by the Saudis, including 349 killed in airstrikes. It also noted that the Saudi coalition had bombing at least 28 schools over the time. It encourages the inclusion of the coalition on the blacklist of nations that kill and maim children in war.

The Saudi coalition was included on that blacklist in 2016, at least originally, though after Saudi Arabia demanded changes, on the grounds that the UN had endorsed their 2015 invasion, the UN quietly removed them from the blacklist.

Whether this leads to a similar exchange this year is unclear, though reports suggest the US is keen to keep the UN report from being officially released, and is demanding that the UN remove the coalition as a whole, and instead only mention specific nations involved in specific strikes. Since the coalition never provides information about whose country’s planes are conducting attacks, this effectively would preclude mentioning any of the airstrikes at all.