Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday criticised the UN for condemning a spate of killings of drug suspects in the country under his administration.
Duterte accused the UN of keeping silent on violence in the Middle East in a speech before the national police.
Referring to conflicts in the region, Duterte said that he had not yet heard any public outcry from the intergovernmental body targeted at “countries that are into it and bombing villages”.
“Those that are bombing communities, killing everybody there, including the goats and the cows and the dogs.
“Why would the UN be so easy to be swayed into interfering in the affairs of the republic,” he said.
According to the police figures, more than 600 suspected drug users, pushers and traffickers have been killed since July 1 although some local media have put the death toll at 1,000.
However, Duterte argued that the numbers were low compared to violence elsewhere in the world.
The 71-year-old president noted that some of those killed since he took office on June 30 had died in fights with other drug criminals.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime had earlier condemned Duterte’s “apparent endorsement of extrajudicial killings” in his fight against illegal drugs and crime.
