UNITED NATIONS — Saudi Arabia expressed its strong condemnation of the report made by a UN committee that the United Nations has presented $14 million to the so-called Yemeni Ministry of Education that is an affiliate of Houthi militias, which are planting thousands of mines inside Yemen and on the Saudi border.

The Kingdom requested the reconsideration of the report submitted to the committee so as to reflect facts that had been ignored and the commitment of all United Nations organs to the relevant Security Council resolutions, including resolution 2216, stressing that United Nations support for Houthi militias was unjustifiable and unacceptable.

The Kingdom also confirmed that the Houthi and Saleh militias had planted and deployed at least 50,000 mines on the Saudi-Yemeni border and tens of thousands of mines in populated Yemeni cities and villages as well as naval mines into the Red Sea near the Saudi border.

The Kingdom expressed its surprise and regret at not referring to these facts in the report submitted to the concerned United Nations Committee, considering this as a serious disregard for how these mines pose a threat to the security and safety of the Kingdom.

This came in a speech delivered by the Kingdom's Permanent delegation to the United Nations on Wednesday to the Special Political and Decolonization Committee (Fourth Committee) on item 50 on Mine Action.

The Kingdom’s delegation expressed its appreciation for the efforts of the United Nations, in particular the United Nations Mine Action Service in the area of mine clearance and the UN efforts to achieve the United Nations Mine Action Strategy for the period 2013-2018. — SPA