UK accomplice to Saudi crimes in Yemen: Rights group

Britain’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia has been unlawful, making the UK an accomplice to Riyadh’s war crimes in Yemen, according to a British rights group.

According to reports, in an interview with The Independent on Friday, Andrew Smith of the UK-based Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) said weapons sold to the Saudi regime have been used for killing civilians in Yemen.

According to the UN, more than 12,000 people have been killed since Saudi Arabia launched its deadly military campaign in Yemen more than two and a half years ago.

“The scale of the destruction that has been inflicted upon Yemen is appalling,” said Smith as quoted by The Independent.

Smith said supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia was unlawful and the UK government, which was selling arms to Riyadh, was a complicit in this illegal act.

The Saudi-led bombing campaign has created all sorts of shortages, triggering a variety of issues across Yemen, including water, food and medicine shortage, as well as a deadly cholera epidemic which has killed nearly 22-hundred people and is suspected to have infected more than 840,000 others.

The United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF) estimated that every 10 minutes a child in Yemen dies of preventable causes.

CAAT accuses the British government of complicity with the Saudis in the atrocities against Yemeni people.

Given the ample proof and positive evidence of civilian deaths and war crimes committed by Saudi Arabia on the Yemeni nation and the humanitarian crisis triggered by Riyadh in the poverty-stricken Arab state, UK and international law forbid Britain from selling weapons to Saudi Arabia.

SS