A Yemeni child looks out at buildings that were damaged in an air strike in the southern Yemeni city of Taez, March 18, 2018.
AHAMAD AL-BASHA / AFP / Getty

“America is now aiding and abetting the use of child soldiers.”

That was how Ari Rabin-Havt, deputy policy director for US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), responded to a New York Times report on Friday detailing Saudi Arabia’s use of Sudanese child soldiers as young as 14 years old to wage its vicious assault on Yemen, which has resulted in the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.

According to the Times, “Five fighters who have returned from Yemen and another about to depart said that children made up at least 20 percent of their units. Two said children were more than 40 percent.”

“To keep a safe distance from the battle lines,” the Times noted, “their Saudi or Emirati overseers commanded the Sudanese fighters almost exclusively by remote control, directing them to attack or retreat through radio headsets and GPS systems provided to the Sudanese officers in charge of each unit, […]