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Soddies hand over 52 Houthi child prisoners
[Saudi Gazette] The Saudi-led Arab Coalition Command said on Tuesday that it has handed over 52 children to the legitimate government in Yemen after they were caught fighting with the Houthi militias along the border with Saudi Arabia . The children were captured while planting land mines, the coalition said in a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency.The process of repatriation was coordinated with international organizations including the Red Cross and UNICEF, the statement said. They were arrested during military operations on the border while the children, carrying weapons, were involved in mine-laying operations, the command said. “Appropriate actions have been taken by transferring them to shelters, according to their legal age, and the application of preventive measures to protect children and provide them with the appropriate conditions. The involvement of children in the bloody events and minefields is considered as an inhuman act and is contrary to all international norms and laws,” the statement added. On his part, Yemeni Foreign Minister Abdel-Malek Al-Mekhlafi, who heads the legitimate government’s peace negotiating team, said the children were aged between 8 and 17 years and their release showed the government and its Saudi-led Coalition ally reject the Houthi crime of using children in war. “They (child prisoners) will be freed in addition to those who had been freed in Marib,” Mekhlafi said on his Twitter account. Posted by: badanov 2016-06-09 |
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