The new Prime Minister of the controversial rebel Houthi government which has just been set-up in Yemen has accused Britain of war crimes, in his first interview since taking power.

Prime Minister Abdulaziz bin Habtour spoke scathingly about how the British Government cares more about making profits from arms sales to Saudi Arabia than the humanitarian disaster in his country.

"They have sold cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia," he told Sky News in his office in the capital Sana'a. "They know the Saudis are going to drop them on Yemen ... in Sa'adah and in Sana'a and other provinces.

"I don't think they are guilty of war crimes, I believe so. They are participating in the bombing of Yemen people."

Image: A remnant of a munition found in Sa'adah

Among American cluster bombs in Sa'adah City we found a nose cone used to protect a British-made Storm Shadow cruise missile, which the Ministry of Defence calls "arguably the most advanced weapon of its kind in the world".


It was clearly marked with a UK identifying stamp.

A soldier who had collected a pile of cluster bomb shells said the nose cone landed four days earlier.

"We have found a lot of British-made bombs," he claimed. He showed us pictures of British cluster bombs he said had been found in fields in the city, which have been shared widely locally.

Is the UK guilty of war crimes in Yemen?

The pictures have been examined by independent bomb experts who said they were "two BL-755 submunitions from an air-dropped BL-755 cluster bomb, most certainly UK made".

Britain agreed to stop using and selling cluster bombs around six years ago.

The words of the Convention on Cluster Munitions also state that signatories will "never under any circumstances assist, encourage or induce" anyone to use such munitions.

However, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are believed to have British-made cluster bombs bought in the 1980s and 1990s.

Image: Yemen bomb disposal teams at work

Theresa May responded by saying during Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday that any allegations of breaches of international humanitarian law would be "properly investigated".

She said "the security of the Gulf is important to us" and added "the intelligence we get from Saudi Arabia has saved potentially hundreds of lives here in the UK".

Sky's investigation follows Human Rights Watch research last year which also concluded cluster bombs, which are banned under international rules of war, had been dropped on the city and there had been several breaches of humanitarian rights where civilians were targeted.

Swathes of Sa'adah City have been reduced to rubble. In the Old City, which dates back to the 9th Century, barely any building has been left untouched by the airstrikes which have pounded it, including the mosque built more than 1,200 years ago.

"We used to think Britain was our friend," one old man told Sky News. "Now we think they are criminals because of what's happening here. They're committing crimes, killing our children and pregnant women."

Sa'adah City is a stronghold of the Houthis, sitting in the north of Yemen near the Saudi border.

Image: Abdulaziz bin Habtour has accused Britain of war crimes in Yemen

It has endured repeated and sustained attacks by the Saudi-led coalition since it launched airstrikes in March 2015 in an attempt to restore what it insists is the legitimate government and its leader, President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, who was driven out of the capital by the Houthis.

Mr Hadi still leads the internationally recognised government out of the southern port of Aden.

The coalition campaign is backed by the US, Britain and France, while the Saudis say the Houthis are aided by Iran.

There have been claims of human rights abuses on both sides but it is the ferocious air campaign by Saudi Arabia that has drawn worldwide concern after hospitals, schools, funerals and weddings were hit.

Sa'adah City is home to a military base, but Sky News saw hundreds of homes, businesses and schools which had been flattened.

Suffering and starvation: Growing up in Yemen

The director of the al Goissy boys' junior school said it had been hit 11 times. When they moved the students to the nearby girls' school to continue their studies, that too was attacked.

"This is a big, big crime," the director Ahmed Ahmed Saleh said. "These are just places of learning. There are no weapons here. They just want to stop our children from learning."

The children are still attending lessons in the classrooms which have not collapsed.

"They suffer from the cold weather," the director said. "Because all the windows have been blown out."

Thirteen-year-old Ahmed Al Munasir said he and his friends were terrified at the continual sound of jets overhead.

"As soon as we hear them, we just run home," he said.

Image: A girls' school in Sa'adah, Yemen, destroyed by bombing

The bombings have had a terrible effect on the health of the population, more than half of which is under 18 years old.

The damaged infrastructure has compromised hygiene and affected clean water supplies, leading to a significant outbreak of cholera as well as a spike in an array of other diseases, including whooping cough, tetanus, measles, pneumonia and severe malnutrition.

The skeletal young face of Fasl Hamood is a picture of pain.

He is nearly two years old but weighs little more than 5kg. His tiny feet look outsized in comparison to his stick-like limbs. His breathing is rapid. His protruding chest heaving in short, rapid movements. His eyes are huge, staring and frightened as he fights for breath.

Image: Fasl Hamood is almost two years old but weighs just over 5kg

His is the face of Yemen's war. A tiny child - one of more than 300,000 estimated to be starving to death in Yemen.

A UK Government spokesperson said: "We are aware of reports of an alleged airstrike on a school using UK-supplied weapons and are seeking further information regarding the incident.

"The UK Government takes all allegations of international humanitarian law violations very seriously. We will analyse this allegation in the usual way.

"This analysis will be used to contribute to our overall view on the approach and attitude of the coalition to international humanitarian law, as part of all the information available to us."

:: Disasters Emergency Committee appeal for Yemen - donate £5 by texting SKY to 7000, calling 0370 60 60 900 or at dec.org.uk