Local Editor
During the Sunday protest Yemeni children gathered outside the UN office to protest the body’s recent decision to drop Saudi Arabia from its blacklist of children’s rights violators.
The protesters chanted slogans against the Saudi regime and its main backer, the United States and condemned the UN of being complicit in crimes being committed in Yemen.
In a symbolic move, protesters donated money to the UN office to call on the world body to rid itself of the influence of powerful countries which fund it.
Human rights groups have urged United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon to put Saudi Arabia back on a blacklist for overwhelmingly violating children’s rights in Yemen.
Last Monday, the UN dropped Saudi Arabia from its annual blacklist, only one week after it announced the blacklisting of the regime.
The Saudi regime and its allies had threatened to cut off funding to UN programs if the UN Secretary General doesn’t drop the kingdom from its list of violators of children rights.
Meanwhile, in another protest on Sunday, Yemeni activists marched near the Old City of Sana’a, a UNESCO World Heritage site, on the first anniversary of Saudi airstrikes on the site.
Mid-June last year, Saudi regime warplanes dropped bombs on Sanaa’s Old City killing five civilians and destroying three buildings that had been listed by UNESCO as heritage sites.
"I am profoundly distressed by the loss of human lives as well as by the damage inflicted on one of the world’s oldest jewels of Islamic urban landscape," UNESCO chief Irina Bokova said after the destruction.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team
