Diplomats and rights advocates gathered at the UN Wednesday (September 13th) to launch a new push for an international investigation into rights violations in Yemen, after two previous attempts failed, AFP reported.
The Netherlands and Canada are spearheading the new bid to push a resolution through the UN Human Rights Council this month on creating an International Commission of Inquiry -- the UN's highest-level probe -- to investigate abuses.
UN rights chief Zeid Raad al-Hussein has repeatedly urged the UN's top rights body to order a probe into the situation in Yemen, where a civil war has killed more than 8,400 since April 2015.
"We have always strongly supported the call from the High Commissioner for the establishment of an international investigation with a clear mandate," Dutch representative Rochus Pronk told a conference at the UN in Geneva.
The bid has support from a range of rights advocates who described the horrors unfolding in Yemen, where more than two years of war between the government and the Houthis (Ansarallah) has created the world's largest humanitarian crisis, according to the UN.
"Yemen is a humanitarian disaster of really epic proportions," Human Rights Watch chief Kenneth Roth told the gathering.
