UN votes to renew Yemen war crimes probe despite Saudi opposition

The United Nations Human Rights Council voted to extend an international probe of alleged war crimes committed in Yemen despite strong opposition from Saudi Arabia and several of its allies. 

Nations voted 21 to 8, with 18 abstentions, in favour of a resolution that renewed the UN-backed investigation for a year. 

Last month, investigators detailed evidence of possible war crimes committed in Yemen by both the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthi rebels supported by Iran. 

The coalition and the Yemeni government, which together are battling the Houthis, strongly criticised the probe's initial report, arguing that it underplayed rebel violations and Iran's role. 

The Arab group in the rights council had backed a rival text that called on Yemen's national human rights commission to take charge of future investigations of the conflict. 

That proposal was a non-starter for many states, given a widespread lack of confidence in the Yemeni commission. 

The approved resolution led by a group of European states and Canada calls on investigators to deliver another report next September.

Probe members had said they needed more time to fully document the range of violations committed in Yemen's conflict, which has killed more than 10,000 people since March 2015 and triggered what the UN has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis. 

Riyadh's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Abdulaziz Alwasil, said he voted no because the resolution did not address his "legitimate concerns", notably about the "lack of balance" in the probe's first report. 

The fact that it went to a vote underscored divisions on the issue within the 47-member rights council, which typically strives for consensus on major texts. 

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the vote "sent a clear message that it stands with Yemeni civilians".

"States at the UN Human Rights Council stood firm today, in the face of shameful efforts by the Saudi-led coalition to quash a UN expert inquiry," HRW's Geneva director, John Fisher, said in a statement. 

The vote came hours after the Saudi-led coalition strongly launched fresh criticism of the UN human rights mission.

The coalition said any extension should be a matter for the Yemeni government, which already announced on Thursday that it was ending cooperation with the UN investigation into suspected war crimes during more than three years of conflict.

'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 thousands of 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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