On May 15, 2020, a group of nongovernmental organizations wrote a public letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and his Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Virginia Gamba to express their grave concern about attacks on health workers and facilities in Yemen. They strongly urged the Secretary-General to re-list the coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for attacks on schools and hospitals – in addition to continuing to list other perpetrators in the conflict, including the Houthis / Ansar Allah – in the annexes of his forthcoming annual report on children and armed conflict.
Since 2015, the Saudi- and Emirati-led coalition has damaged or destroyed health facilities in Yemen through airstrikes and shelling, leaving the local health care infrastructure near collapse. While the coalition was delisted from the annual report for attacks on schools and hospitals in 2017, it has continued to perpetrate such attacks with impunity.
Read the letter to the Secretary-General on attacks on health care in Yemen.
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