Saudi under global pressure to stop crimes in Yemen: Journalist

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon speaks to the media during a press conference in Riyadh on February 8, 2015. ©AFP

Press TV has conducted an interview with Sherif el-Touni, a journalist and political commentator from Cairo, on the United Nations’ criticism of Saudi war crimes in Yemen.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: We are seeing UN chief Ban Ki-moon taking a very different tone in dealing with Saudi Arabia for its indiscriminate bombing of Yemen? Of course, this Saudi onslaught on Yemen has been going of since March 26 of last year; why now?

Touni: First let me start by saying that the prime victim for this war between the Saudi and Yemen is definitely the Yemeni civilians.

Looking at the numbers, it is quite shocking. More than 80 percent, in terms of humanitarian cases, more than 20 million, we’re speaking about hundreds of thousands of children away from their schools, we’re speaking also about devastating blockade of the ports definitely affecting a country, which is importing 90 percent of its food and 70 percent of its fuel.

Definitely with this report is quite shocking, looking at the numbers and looking at the casualties, including those children as victims also for this war.

It comes today, because there has been a report that was issued by the UN commission, and there were right groups on the ground looking at the numbers and looking at the schools being attacked and civilians.

And definitely, in such types of wars and conflicts we’ll be definitely seeing a lot of civilians being part of the casualties and this fight is ongoing between both sides.

So today it comes as a pressure, because we see also political stances by senators in the United States also looking at this matter, we’re seeing the parliament in the UK also calling to stop arming Saudi Arabia. Definitely it all comes to boil down to a lot of pressures against Saudi Arabia today.


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