Alwaght- The United Nations has added a Saudi-led military coalition to a blacklist of child rights violators for killing and injuring of hundreds of children in war-torn Yemen.
The alliance formed by the Saudi regime for the illegal aggression on Yemen in 2015, was added on Thursday to the UN chief's annual list of shame for killing and maiming 683 children and for 38 verified attacks on schools and hospitals during 2016.
The UN annual report on children in armed conflict noted, however, that the coalition had "put in places measures during the reporting period to improve the protection of children".
The coalition was last year left in Yemen's war report following pressure by the Saudi regime.
Though it had initially been placed on the 2016 report, it was later "temporarily" removed by then-UN chief Ban Ki-moon, who cited "unacceptable" pressure by the Persian Gulf countries, including threats by Saudi Arabia to cut humanitarian funding to the UN.
Ban described his decision to remove the coalition off the list as one of the most "painful and difficult."
The Saudi-led coalition started a bloody aggression on Yemen in March 2015 to oust the popular Ansarullah movement and restore to power fugitive Abdul Rabbuh Mansour Hadi who resigned as president and fled to Riyadh. The Saudis have failed to achieve their stated objective and are now stuck in the Yemen quagmire while indiscriminately bombarding the impoverished stated on an almost daily basis.
Independent estimates put the death toll of the Saudi-led aggression on Yemen at over 13,000 mostly civilians including women, children and the elderly.
