Yemen govt ends cooperation with UN rights mission citing 'bias report'

Yemen's government said it will end its cooperation with a UN human rights mission, accusing investigators of bias after a report on alleged war crimes, a statement confirmed on Thursday.

The government came under fire last month after UN experts highlighted deadly airstrikes by the regional Saudi-led coalition supporting it in the war with the Houthi rebels.

"The government refuses to extend the mission's mandate because its findings, outlined in the report, did not meet the standards of professionalism and impartiality or the basic principles of the United Nations," said a statement carried by the state-run Saba news agency.

It accused the UN group of "turning a blind eye" to the violations of the Houthi rebels, who the government has been battling since 2014.

On Wednesday, the investigators, appointed by the Human Rights Council a year ago, had requested they continue probing the "extremely alarming" situation in Yemen, amid resistance from Saudi Arabia and its allies.

The report concluded all sides in Yemen's conflict may have committed "war crimes". 

But the Saudi-led coalition has dismissed as "inaccurate" and "non-neutral" the UN experts' August 28 report, which accused both government forces and the Houthis of violations against international law.

The report said coalition airstrikes had caused "most of the documented civilian casualties" and voiced "serious concerns about the targeting process applied by the coalition".

It listed a large number of strikes on residential areas, markets, funerals, weddings and medical facilities with no apparent military targets in the vicinity of the attacks.

Last week, Human Rights Watch criticised Riyadh's "campaign to discredit and undermine a UN investigation into abuses by all Yemen's warring parties", calling it "yet another blatant attempt to avoid scrutiny of the coalition's own actions in Yemen”.

Saudi Arabia and its ally the United Arab Emirates, which are leading a coalition fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen, are both members of the Arab group on the 47-member rights council. 

"The Saudi-led coalition's campaign to discredit and undermine a UN investigation into abuses by all Yemen’s warring parties is yet another blatant attempt to avoid scrutiny of the coalition's own actions in Yemen," John Fisher, HRW's Geneva director, said in a statement. 

"The Human Rights Council cannot afford to fail Yemeni civilians. States should renew the mandate of the (probe) or risk the Council's credibility," he added. 



'World's worst humanitarian crisis'

Observers say Saudi Arabia, which leads a coalition that intervened in the conflict in March 2015 on behalf of President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi's government in the fight against Houthi rebels, is actively working to quash the international probe.

Yemen has since descended into what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with more than 10,000 people killed and millions at risk of starvation. 

The coalition has been accused of bombing multiple civilian targets, including buses and hospitals. 

Earlier this month, Save the Children warned more than five million children are at risk of famine in Yemen as the ongoing war causes food and fuel prices to soar across the country.

Disruption to supplies coming through the embattled Red Sea port of Hodeida could "cause starvation on an unprecedented scale," the UK-based NGO said in a new report.

Save the Children said an extra one million children now risk falling into famine as prices of food and transportation rise, bringing the total to 5.2 million.

Three quarters of the population - or 22 million people - are in need of humanitarian aid, according to UN figures.

Agencies contributed to this report.

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