The UN Human Rights Council on Friday called on the Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels in Yemen to spare civilians in a Saudi-drafted resolution that omitted a Western plan for UN-led war crimes probe.
The Netherlands had initially proposed that the UN Human Rights Office collected evidence of serious human rights violations on the ground, after the office reported killings of civilians by all sides in the conflict as well as recruitment of child soldiers.
According to UN rights investigators, nearly two thirds of the civilian deaths until June allegedly resulted from coalition attacks.
However, Arab countries and Yemen’s government that were in exile in Riyadh did not support the Dutch plan and introduced their own resolution at the Geneva-based rights council.
This resolution only asked the UN rights office in Geneva to assist Yemen in developing its capacity to protect human rights and in its domestic process for probing past abuses.
Meanwhile, all 47 countries represented on the UN rights council, including Western countries, adopted the Saudi text on Thursday.