Human rights groups accuse Saudi Arabia of lobbying to stop UN investigation of war crimes in Yemen

ByNews Desk - The Cradle 

Human rights activists have also taken aim at the UN for ignoring violations committed by the Saudi-backed administration in southern Yemen

Human rights groups have accused Saudi Arabia of lobbying to prevent UN investigators who have documented alleged war crimes in Yemen from extending their mandate.

“Saudi Arabia … is engaging in a tireless lobbying campaign to deter states at the Human Rights Council from renewing the mandate [of UN investigators],” Afrah Nasser, a researcher at the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), said in a statement.

The news comes just one day before the the UN Human Rights Council is set to vote on a motion to extend the mandate of the Group of Eminent Experts (GEE) on Yemen.

Established by the UN Human rights Council in 2017, the GEE has found repeatedly that Saudi coalition air strikes and shelling during the seven-year conflict may amount to war crimes.

Last month, the head of the GEE, Kamel Jendoubi, presented a report to the UN saying that air strikes launched by the Saudi-led coalition “continue to exact a huge toll on the civilian population,” adding that since 2015, over 23,000 air strikes have been carried out by coalition forces.

According to a joint statement issued by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies and Yemeni rights group Mwatana, the Saudi lobbying campaign recently intensified efforts to dissolve support for the GEE.

In addition, human rights activists in southern Yemen have accused the UN of turning a blind eye to violations committed in areas under coalition control, in particular in Yemen’s oil-rich Shabwah governorate.

“The [Saudi-backed government] of Yemen is using violence against its citizens in Shabwa, including targeted assassinations with the help of agents from extremist and terrorist groups,” said Nasr Obaid, a human rights activist with the Southern Independent Group.

According to Obaid, the UN has repeatedly ignored human rights violations committed by the Saudi-backed parallel government of ousted President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi in Shabwah, including at least 55 assassinations and more than 600 arbitrary arrests.

Since 2015, Yemen has been mired in a brutal Saudi-led war that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions. The country also faces a western-backed economic blockade that has sent the currency plummeting and has pushed most of its regions to the brink of famine.