According
to an annual report on children and armed conflict released by UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the coalition was responsible for 60
percent of a total of 510 deaths and 667 woundings in 2015 after its
campaign began in March—a six-fold increase, as Human Rights Watch (HRW)
separately pointed out
"Grave violations against children increased dramatically as a result of the escalating conflict," Ban said in the
report .
International human rights groups
warned in March that the flow of weapons to Saudi Arabia has
"facilitated appalling crimes" in Yemen, and that the U.S. and other
Western nations are complicit in the deaths of children there due to
their continued allegiance with the Persian Gulf nation.
As HRW
Finberg Fellow Kristine Beckerle wrote on Thursday, "The conflict in
Yemen has taken a devastating toll on the country's children. In order
to help end these grave violations, the international community should
take immediate action, including suspending arms sales to Saudi Arabia
and forming an international mechanism to investigate violations by all
sides."
The UN report blacklists those that "engage in the
recruitment and use of children, sexual violence against children, the
killing and maiming of children, attacks on schools and/or hospitals and
attacks or threats of attacks against protected personnel, and the
abduction of children."
However, it stops short of placing the U.S.
on that list despite making mention of its deadly airstrike on a Doctors
Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz,
Afghanistan last year—which the medical charity and other human rights
groups have labeled a "war crime."
Instead, the report claims, that attack was carried out by "international forces."
Kirsty
McNeill, director of advocacy and campaigns at Save the Children, told
the Independent that the sanctioning of the coalition was the first time
an international military alliance had been placed on the "list of
shame."
Western nations "must now urgently suspend arms exports to
Saudi Arabia while they risk being used in Yemen in violation of
international law and throw its weight behind calls by the UNHCR, the
Commons International Development Committee and Save the Children to
back an international, impartial investigation into alleged violations
by all sides," McNeill said.
Ban stated in his report that accountability for the deaths and maiming of children in Yemen must be a "shared responsibility."
As Beckerle concluded, "The time to shoulder that responsibility is now."
Source:
commondreams.org