SANAA, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations has moved to put the Saudi-led coalition on its annual blacklist of child rights' violators for the killing and maiming of children in Yemen, local media said Wednesday.
In Yemen, the coalition's actions objectively led to the listing for the killing and maiming of children, with 683 child casualties attributed to this party, as a result of attacks on schools and hospitals during," the report cited a UN draft report as saying.
Yemen's government forces, pro-government militias, the Houthi rebels and Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) were also blacklisted, the draft said.
The final report and the list, contained in an annex, are to be sent to the Security Council on Thursday before its public release on Friday. The council will hold a debate on children and armed conflict on Oct. 31.
Saudi Arabia leads an Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after Iran-backed Houthi rebels forced him into exile.
The United Nations has listed Yemen as the world's number one humanitarian crisis, with seven million Yemenis on the brink of famine and cholera causing more than 2,000 deaths.
Another draft of the full report circulated in August said that 51 percent of the 683 child casualties in 2016 were attributed to the coalition.
Nearly three-quarters of the 38 verified attacks on schools and hospitals in 2016 were carried out by airstrikes by the coalition, it said.
Watchlist on Children in Armed Conflict, which groups leading human rights organizations, said it hopes that the draft listing will make it into the final report.
