JEDDAH: Two Houthis attacks were thwarted by the Arab coalition on Friday morning, Saudi state TV said.
The coalition destroyed an explosive-laden boat in the Red Sea and an explosive-laden drone that was launched toward Saudi Arabia, according to the Al-Ekhbariya channel.
Political analyst and international relations scholar, Dr. Hamdan Al-Shehri, warned that the Houthis would not stop unless the international community took a serious stance against them.
“This is not the first or last time that the Houthis have targeted civilians,” he told Arab News. “Sadly, no international organization, whether in the UN or the international community, has put enough pressure on the Houthis to stop.”
He agreed with the remarks from Yemen’s foreign affairs minister, who said the international community’s lax stance was why the militia had gone as far as it had.
The international community and people like the UN’s Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths were to be held accountable for what was happening, Al-Shehri added.
“We’ve all seen the clip of the young girl directing a message to the UN’s envoy for Yemen, asking the UN to act,” he said, referring to a video of a young girl who lost a leg after a Houthi attack on Taiz.
The girl, Shaima, addressed her message to Griffiths in English and complained about the six years of Houthi terror in her city.
“I am Shaima from Yemen. I am 10 years old and have become one of the victims of Houthi terror attacks on my city, Taiz, alongside thousands of children all over Yemen,” she said in the video message.
The attack was part of the group’s ongoing crimes against children and civilians in Yemen, according to the country’s Minister of Information Muammar Al-Iryani.
Al-Shehri said that Shaima represented tens of thousands of people who had been attacked by the Iran-backed militia, and described the UN’s 2016 call for the Houthis to end their operations and lay down their arms as ink on paper because these demands “are yet to be met and have been ignored for years now.”
The militia continues to perpetrate human rights violations in Yemen, especially against children, by killing or injuring them, recruiting them, depriving them of education or forcibly displacing them.
