Riyadh using starvation as tactic against people of Yemen, Saudi Arabia

The United Nations (UN) says Riyadh is using starvation as a tactic in its ongoing war against Yemen as well as against the Shia population inside Saudi Arabia itself. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child made the declaration in a scathing report on Saudi rights violations in Yemen and inside Saudi Arabia. The UN watchdog said children in the minority Shia communities inside Saudi Arabia continue to be subject to discrimination with regard to access to food, school, and justice.

The UN committee also rapped Saudi Arabia over a wide range of rights violations against children, including executing, stoning, flogging, and amputating them. The UN body urged Riyadh to repeal laws that are lenient on the sexual abuse of children as well as their incarceration in solitary confinement.

Eighteen independent experts from the committee expressed deep concern in the report that Riyadh “still does not recognize girls as full subjects of rights and continues to severely discriminate (against) them in law and practice and to impose on them a system of male guardianship.”The experts also harshly criticized Riyadh for its airstrikes on Yemen, which have killed and maimed hundreds of children.

A 10-year-old Yemeni girl has, meanwhile, spoken to Press TV of the ordeal of children in Yemen. Yara’a Mutwakli, who has posted a video online appealing to the world for an end to the Saudi war on her country, told Press TV that the increasing number of deaths in Yemen prompted her to post the video.

She said Yemeni students begin the new academic year with fear and anxiety as Saudi Arabia continues to indiscriminately drop bombs across the country.

“We cannot go to school. We are scared when we go to school. Like on Saturday, there really happened a big bombing beside the school. We had to be in the basement. We were really scared,” Mutwakli told a Press TV correspondent.

Meanwhile, the latest Saudi airstrike in Yemen has killed two civilians at a market in Hudaydah Province. Several others were injured in the attack, which also inflicted widespread damage to numerous buildings and destroyed several cars in the area.

Separately, several people are feared dead in Saudi bombardment of the port city of Mokha over the past hours. Reports say Riyadh has intensified its air raids on Mokha and Hudaydah ever since Yemeni forces targeted in a missile attack an Emirati ship aiding the Saudi invaders last week.

Some 10,000 people have so far been killed in the Saudi war on Yemen, according to the United Nations (UN).

Local Editor