UNITED NATIONS — For two years in a row, the exercise of naming and shaming armies that kill and maim children on the battlefield has been subject to intense political jockeying among the powerful at the United Nations.
Last year, secretary general Ban Ki-moon, after intense pressure from Israel and the United States, kept both Israel and Hamas off the global list of children’s rights violators, despite the recommendations of a senior envoy.
On Monday, just four days after adding to the list the Saudi-led military coalition that has been bombing Yemen, Mr. Ban announced that he was scrubbing it off while he awaits a review conducted jointly with a team from the accused coalition.
In a statement, Mr. Ban said he had invited the coalition “to send a team to New York as soon as possible for detailed discussions.”
“Pending the conclusions of the joint review, the Secretary-General removes the listing of the Coalition in the report’s annex,” the statement added.
Minutes later, the Saudi ambassador to the United Nations, Abdullah bin Yahya Almouallimi, appeared before reporters at the organization’s headquarters to contradict Mr. Ban, asserting that the removal was “unconditional and irreversible.”
“There was no foundation for this listing to be made in the first place,” he said.
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, both members of a nine-country coalition that includes Egypt, United Arab Emirates and Sudan, are important donors to United Nations agencies, including Unicef.
“After giving a similar pass to Israel last year, the U.N. Secretary-General’s office has hit a new low by capitulating to Saudi Arabia’s brazen pressure and taking the country off its just-published list of shame,” said Philippe Bolopion, the deputy director for global advocacy at Human Rights Watch. “Yemen’s children deserve better.”
The annual report, called Children and Armed Conflict, had originally found that the Saudi-led coalition was responsible for most of the child deaths and injuries in Yemen last year.
