18 August, 2017
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The number of airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition reached 5,676 by the end of June, and was followed by intensified clashes on the ground, mainly around the city of Taiz, now under siege by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. In July, Watchlist and Save the Children issued a joint publication listing a number of incidents in which the coalition conducted airstrikes in civilian areas, resulting in the deaths and injuries of more than 120 children and damage and destruction to schools and hospitals.
While the report does not specify who is behind the air raids, the Saudi-led Arab military coalition allied with the government largely controls Yemen's airspace.
The Saudi-led coalition is the only force in Yemen with warplanes and helicopter gunships, making it the likely perpetrator of such acts.
The draft report echoes similar findings from previous year when the US-backed coalition was put on a United Nations blacklist for violating child rights.
The Saudi coalition was included on that blacklist in 2016, at least originally, though after Saudi Arabia demanded changes, on the grounds that the United Nations had endorsed their 2015 invasion, the United Nations quietly removed them from the blacklist. "I call on all parties to a conflict, the security Council and the member States to take all measures possible to prevent the achievement of such violations", he adds.
Saudi Arabia's United Nations mission said in a statement on Wednesday that there was "no justification whatsoever" for including the coalition's name on the blacklist.
Instead, Washington has pressed the U.N.to list only those individual states directly responsible for atrocities, according to those sources. Gamba's draft attributed the fall to a temporary ebb in fighting that followed the signing of a cessation of hostilities agreement in April 2016.
In this annual document on children and armed conflict, seen by AFP, are listed in the countries and organizations accused including the recruitment and use of children, killing, mutilating, removing or committing acts of sexual abuse against them.
Gamba told Foreign Policy that the contents of the final report, which is still being discussed with various United Nations offices, have "not been finalized".
