United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres removed a Saudi Arabia-led military coalition from a UN blacklist, several years after it was first named and shamed for killing and injuring children in Yemen, ABC News informed.
Guterres said the coalition would be delisted “following a sustained significant decrease in killing and maiming due to airstrikes” and the implementation of measures aimed at protecting children.
But he added that the coalition would be subjected to one year of monitoring and “any failure” to further decrease child casualties would result in it being listed again next year.
The coalition killed or injured 222 children in Yemen last year, Guterres wrote in his annual report to the UN Security Council.
He said the Houthis were responsible for 313 such casualties and the Yemen government forces accounted for 96 casualties. Unlike the Saudi-led coalition, both remain on the annual children and armed conflict blacklist.
Yemen has been mired in conflict since the Iran-allied Houthi group ousted the government from the capital Sanaa in 2014. The Saudi-led military coalition intervened in 2015 in a bid to restore the government.
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