Geneva- The Euro-Mediterranean for Human Rights Monitor welcomed a vote by the UN Human Rights Council on Friday to form a committee of experts to monitor violations in Yemen, following the military campaign launched by the Saudi-led Arab coalition.

The Geneva-based Human Rights organization said in a press statement that the committee's formation of “a group of prominent international and regional experts is an important step towards determining the extent of violations in Yemen and to bring justice to its civilian population.”

At the same time, the Euro-Mediterranean expressed its alarm at the pressures and threats exerted by countries in the coalition to disrupt the effective formation of an international commission of inquiry and to take urgent steps to hold perpetrators of these violations and crimes in Yemen accountable.

The Euro-Mediterranean reasserted its call to deal seriously with the ongoing violations of various parties in Yemen and to accelerate the conduct of an independent international investigation into the violations, both committed by the Houthis or resulting from the military operations of the coalition forces.

The Human Rights Council voted by consensus to send a one-year committee of prominent international and regional experts to monitor abuses in Yemen.

The resolution came after pressure from the coalition states to prevent setting up an international commission of inquiry to investigate human rights violations following issuing an important report in 2014 by the United Nations Special Commission on North Korea.

Saudi Arabia has exerted pressure in recent years to prevent passing a resolution by the Human Rights Council to form an international commission of inquiry, calling for forming a local Yemeni investigation committee instead.

Saudi Arabia and its allies have been battling the Iranian-backed Huthis movement in Yemen since the movement seized most of the north in 2015.

The Euro-Mediterranean for Human Rights Monitor affirmed at the 36^th Session of the Human Rights Council, held in Geneva from 11 to 28 of this month, the need for an international investigation into the war in Yemen, which claimed thousands of lives, destroyed the economy and pushed millions to the brink of famine.