There must be a war crimes investigation in Yemen
Tom Brake
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman and MP for Carshalton & Wallington
The prime minister no doubt used her visit to Saudi Arabia to desperately seek trade deals that will help cobble together a plan to combat the monumental act of self-harm that is leaving the single market.
What she should have done was have a moment of conscience and think about the people of Yemen.
International charities say Yemen is in the grip of a perfect storm of war, economic meltdown and humanitarian crisis. Yet while British aid is helping to save lives there, the country is being being pounded by British arms, sold to our Saudi Arabia allies, exacerbating the situation.
Yemeni families face a daily nightmare of falling bombs, a critical lack of clean water and food which leaves the country teetering on the edge of famine and outbreaks of preventable conditions such as cholera and measles which are killing a child every ten minutes. This nightmare is deepened by “widespread and systematic” international humanitarian law violations by the Saudi coalition that have the “potential to meet the criteria for a crime against humanity”, according to a panel of experts set up by the United Nations.
The figures are almost impossible to comprehend: 18 million people, including ten million children, need humanitarian assistance. That’s eight in ten people in Yemen who need humanitarian aid to survive.
Britain can take credit for its leadership in providing humanitarian aid to Yemen — but ministers must also take responsibility for failing to use British influence to ensure that aid is not blocked. They have also failed to hold to account those responsible for the unrelenting attacks on civilians.
Save the Children has said that the warring parties, including the Saudi-led coalition, are blocking aid as a “weapon of war”: detaining aid workers, bombing ports and holding up desperately needed food and medicines. Plans to attack the port of Hodeida, already damaged by Saudi bombs, risk causing a humanitarian catastrophe if steps are not taken to divert aid to other ports. Hodeida receives nearly three quarters of all imports and humanitarian assistance shipments.
For a country which Britain counts as an ally to be deliberately withholding aid is bad enough but the Saudi-led coalition is also responsible for the unrelenting bombardment of Yemen’s towns and cities, hitting homes, destroying clinics trying to care for starving families and killing children in their classrooms. Similar crimes are undoubtedly being committed by the Houthi opposition.
Deliberately withholding lifesaving aid and attacking civilians are war crimes yet in Yemen these reports are not being properly investigated and those responsible are not being held to account. To date, the government has said that the investigations, led by the Saudis themselves, are sufficient.
It could not be clearer that the Saudis investigating themselves is woefully inadequate and deeply inappropriate. The case for a fully independent, international investigation into alleged war crimes, on all sides of the conflict in Yemen, is irrefutable.
Yemen faces a humanitarian catastrophe. The government must stand up for international humanitarian law, halt arms sales, demand that our allies immediately allow humanitarian access and support calls for a ceasefire and a full, impartial investigation into what appear to be horrific war crimes.
To leave Saudi Arabia with more credibility than her predecessors, our prime minister had to stop the flow of arms. By failing to do so, her government chose shamefully to side with Saudi Arabia, rather than hold the Saudi authorities to account on their alleged human rights abuses in Yemen.
Ours is a government which has abetted a humanitarian disaster and brought further bloodshed and poverty to civilians in an already stricken land. The continued failure of the government to take action in Yemen leaves Britain’s reputation in the world permanently damaged