Yemen - Profit not People

Campaigners say ‘mountain of evidence’ shows British-made weapons being used to commit war crimes.

Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said it was deeply concerned about attacks killing dozens of civilians, including children, over the past week. “International humanitarian law prohibits attacks against civilians and civilian objects, indiscriminate attacks, and it obliges all parties to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians and civilian objects,” he said, listing Saudi-led air strikes that destroyed a market, family home and public square.

The number of British-made bombs and missiles sold to Saudi Arabia since the start of its bloody campaign in Yemen has risen by almost 500 per cent. More than £4.6bn of arms were sold in the first two years of bombings, with the Government grant increasing numbers of export licences despite mounting evidence of war crimes and massacres at hospitals, schools, and weddings. 

Figures from the Department for International Trade show that in the two years leading up to the Yemen war, £33m of ML4 licences covering bombs, missiles and countermeasures were approved. But in the two years since the start of Saudi bombing in March 2015, the figure increased to £1.9bn (457 per cent rise)

Licences covering aircraft including Eurofighter jets have also risen by 70 per cent to £2.6bn in the same period.

The United Nations says air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition are the main cause of almost 5,295 civilian deaths and 8,873 casualties confirmed so far, warning that the real figure is “likely to be far higher”.

British-made bombs have been found at the scene of bombings deemed to violate international law but the UK has continued its political and material support for the bombing campaign. The products being sold include Raytheon’s Paveway IV bomb, which was found at the scene of an air strike that hit vital food stores in January last year, and the Brimstone, Storm Shadow, PGM 500 Hakim and Alarm missiles.

Tom Barns, co-director of CAAT, said the Government has been accelerating sales of “equipment being used to commit atrocities in Yemen” as the pace of Saudi-led air strikes increases. Over the course of this year the situation in Yemen is only getting worse,” he added. Barns said the “clear pattern of attacks” causing civilian casualties should have caused the UK to stop arms sales to the authoritarian state long ago.  “It’s a relationship that gives military and political support to one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world,” he added. “Far from defending the world from terrorism, the bombing of Yemen is also creating ungoverned spaces where al-Qaeda and similar groups are thriving.”

Kristine Beckerle, a Yemen researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said, “The UK goes on and on about how it’s concerned about the humanitarian situation in Yemen but it seems unwilling to pressure the Saudi-led coalition to make it better. It’s clear that governments use arms sales as a means of leveraging political support.”

Amnesty International UK said a total halt to British arms exports to Saudi Arabia was “long overdue”. Polly Trustcott, its foreign affairs analyst, said: 

“These figures are a further reminder of how the UK Government is apparently more interested in the financial bottom line for the arms industry, than in the need to protect civilians.”