SANA’A (Dispatches) – The United Nations Security Council’s pro-Riyadh statement ignores the Saudi war crimes against the Yemeni people, the Yemeni Foreign Ministry says.
In a statement on Wednesday, members of the UN Security Council called for an urgent ceasefire across Yemen and an end to the Yemeni Army’s advances toward the last stronghold of Saudi-backed mercenaries in the strategic city of Ma’rib.
The National Salvation Government’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement the Security Council did not show any positive development in its policies towards the grievances of the Yemeni people, who have been facing an illegal and unjustified war for nearly seven years.
“It is unfortunate that the Security Council continues to condemn the legitimate right of the Yemeni people to defend themselves and the sovereignty of their country, while ignoring the war crimes” committed by the Saudi-led war coalition against Yemeni civilians, read the statement.
The Foreign Ministry of the National Salvation Government, which runs the Yemeni government from the capital Sana’a, further said the coalition’s war crimes include air raids on Yemeni territory on a daily basis, in addition to a tight siege against the Yemeni people, which has deprived them of their most basic needs and legitimate rights.
Since 2015, Saudi Arabia has led a war coalition against Yemen to overthrow the popular Ansarullah movement and reinstall the ousted, Riyadh-friendly regime of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi in Sana’a.
The prolonged war, accompanied by an economic siege, has failed to reach its goals, killing hundreds of thousands of Yemeni people while throwing the poorest Middle Eastern country into what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
In a latest development, at least one person has been killed and three others wounded when Saudi fighter jets struck pharmaceutical warehouses in Yemen’s capital province of Sana’a.
They bombarded the facilities in Saawan neighborhood on Thursday, Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network reported, citing local sources.
Saudi military spokesman Turki al-Maliki confirmed the airstrikes, alleging that the kingdom had exercised restraint in recent months in support of UN efforts and initiatives to find a comprehensive and lasting political solution to the Yemen crisis.
The spokesman for Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement, Mohammed Abdul-Salam, denounced the aggression.
“The bombardment of pharmaceutical warehouses and other civilian facilities in Sana’a come in light of the recent statement by the UN Security Council, which is completely biased in favor of the coalition of aggression. Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia is forging ahead with its aggression and siege instead of stopping them and calculating the upshot of its foolishness,” he wrote in a post published on his Twitter page.
Meanwhile, the Yemen Petroleum Company (YPC) says member countries of the Saudi-led coalition waging war against Yemen are looting the impoverished country’s oil reserves, urging the UN to take action to alleviate the sufferings of Yemeni people.
“We are suffering from a systematic looting operation, carried out by the aggression [coalition’s] mercenaries and run by the member countries of the [Saudi-led] coalition, and which targets the wealth of the Yemeni people,” Essam Al-Mutawakel, a spokesman for the Yemen Petroleum Company (YPC), told al-Masirah on Wednesday.
He noted that the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a member of the coalition, has brought boats and is present in Yemen’s ports to steal the Yemeni oil.
Al-Mutawakel added that the Saudi-led aggressors have stolen “more than 165 million dollars” a month from Yemen’s oil sale revenues, while Yemen is grappling with an economic crisis.