Iranian Physician Raps UN Inaction on Saudi Crimes in Yemen

In his third letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in 15 months, Dr. Seyed Alireza Marandi voiced concern at the global body’s failure to prevent the indiscriminate killing of Yemenis by the Saudi-led military campaign.

He also branded a recent airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition on a hospital in Yemen as war crime, and decried the silence of international human rights organizations on the tragic incident.

At least 11 people were killed and 19 others injured in the fatal bombing of the Médecins Sans Frontières (doctors without borders) hospital in Yemen’s Hajjah province last week by Saudi Arabia.

The strike, in which a member of MSF staff was also killed, was the latest in an increasing number of attacks targeting places commonly used by civilians, including hospitals where MSF doctors and nurses work. It followed similar airstrikes on a food factory and a school in Yemen.

Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia and some of its Arab allies have been launching deadly airstrikes against the Houthi Ansarullah movement in an attempt to restore power to the fugitive former President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.

According to media reports, more than 8,000 Yemenis, most of them civilians, have been killed in the Saudi-led aggression so far.

What follows is Dr. Marandi’s letter to Ban:

His Excellency Ban Ki-moon

Secretary-General of the United Nations

Excellency,

I write again with reference to my previous correspondence with you dated 18 May 2015, and 14 June 2016 concerning the failure of the United Nations to prevent the criminal actions of the Saudi regime in their indiscriminate killing of the oppressed people of Yemen.

Unfortunately, last week we witnessed the bombing of a hospital by the Saudi regime which was again followed by the silence of international human rights organizations. A war crime was committed when this hospital treating sick and injured civilians was struck, killing children, women, men and medical staff, including Doctors Without Borders personnel.

How long will the United Nations close its eyes to these continuing atrocities because of the Saudi regime’s financial clout within the organization you (take the) helm? History will not judge well a United Nations which professes to be the upholder of higher humanitarian standards in the world and yet allows its silence to be purchased. A silence which effectively denies civilians protection from war crimes and recourse to the very structures of justice they are entitled to under UN conventions.

Yours sincerely,

Seyed Alireza Marandi, M.D.

President

Iran’s Academy of Medical Sciences