Perpetrators of violence against civilians should be held accountable: Saudi envoy
Arab News,
May 24, 2018
Al-Mouallimi:
International law and Islamic principles are being violated with impunity. In
Yemen, abuses against civilians by Iran-backed Houthi militias include the
recruitment of children, the planting of mines in civilian neighborhoods and
the use of human shields, said Saudi Arabia's top diplomat at the UN
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| Children attending an open-air Arabic school in February at Kutupalong refugee camp, where they were learning to read the Qur’an. (Reuters) |
JEDDAH: Perpetrators
of violence against civilians should be held accountable and punished for their
crimes, the Saudi ambassador to the UN, Abdallah Al-Mouallimi, told the
Security Council on Tuesday.
International
law and Islamic principles are being violated with impunity, he added. “We witnessed
a new massacre committed by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza, which killed
dozens of Palestinian martyrs and wounded thousands,” he said.
“And for
seven consecutive years, the world has witnessed bloodletting in Syria, which
killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians using various means,”
including “genocide,” he added.
“In
Myanmar, the world is watching as hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya are
driven out of their homes that are burnt, their women raped and children
displaced.”
In Yemen,
abuses against civilians by Iran-backed Houthi militias include the recruitment
of children, the planting of mines in civilian neighborhoods and the use of
human shields, Al-Mouallimi said.
He cited
the example of four-year-old Jamila, who had been used as a human shield. She
was saved by Saudi-led coalition forces and handed over to her family.
Saudi
Arabia supports the formation of a committee of inquiry into Israel’s crimes in
Gaza, and a mechanism to collect documents and evidence to hold perpetrators of
war crimes in Syria accountable, Al-Mouallimi said.
He
stressed the need to facilitate the return of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar in a
safe, dignified and voluntary way, and to hold accountable those who caused
them harm.
