Saudi Arabia rejects UN support for Houthi militias

RIYADH - 3 November 2017: Saudi Arabia has strongly condemned a report made by a UN committee that the United Nations has presented $14 million to the so-called Yemeni Ministry of Education that is an affiliate of Al-Houthi militias which are "planting thousands of mines inside Yemen and on the Saudi border," official SPA news agency reported Thursday.

The kingdom made the denunciation in a speech delivered by its permanent delegation to the United Nations on Wednesday to the Special Political and Decolonization Committee (Fourth Committee) on item 50 on Mine Action.

It requested the reconsideration of the report submitted to the committee to reflect the facts that had been ignored and the commitment of all United Nations organs to the relevant Security Council resolutions, including resolution 2216, stressing that the UN support for the Houthi coup militias was unjustifiable or unacceptable.

"The rogue militias of Houthis and Saleh had planted and deployed at least 50,000 mines on the Saudi-Yemeni border and tens of thousands of mines in populated Yemeni cities and villages as well as naval mines into the Red Sea near the Saudi border," it said.

It expressed its surprise and regret over the failure to refer to these facts in the report, considering this as a serious disregard for how these mines pose threat to the security and safety of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi delegation expressed its appreciation for the efforts of the UN, in particular the United Nations Mine Action Service in the area of mine clearance and the UN efforts to achieve its Mine Action Strategy for the period 2013-2018 in line with the achievement of the goals of the United Nations Plan for Sustainable Development 2030.