THE UK is “complicit” in Yemen war crimes, an MP has claimed as the UN releases a scathing new report.

The agency’s Human Rights Council says the governments of Yemen and its allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates may be responsible for violating international law in the battle against the Houthi fighters seeking control of the devastated country.

The rebels are also said to have committed abuses in the document, which covers rape, torture, and “deprivation of the right to life”.

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The Saudi-led coalition backing the official government is further said to have routinely failed to use its “no-strike” list of 30,000 civilian sites when orchestrating air strikes.

Around 6500 civilian deaths and more than 10,200 injuries were recorded by the UN between March 2015 and June this year.

However, the numbers are understood to be inaccurate, with the report noting that the “real figure” of deaths “is likely to be significantly higher”.

A confidential list of individuals thought to have responsibility for the commission of the most serious crimes was yesterday set to be passed to the office of the UN human rights chief.

The UK Government has repeatedly defended its record on multi-billion pound weaponry sales to Saudi Arabia, disputing evidence of war crimes and stating that the Gulf kingdom should be allowed to carry out its own investigations into claims that it has committed atrocities. This includes deliberate targeting of housing and hospitals.

Yesterday SNP foreign affairs spokesperson Stephen Gethins said: “The UN’s damning conclusions that the Saudi-led coalition, alongside other parties, are likely to have been responsible for war crimes should be a wake-up call for the UK Government, which has been engaged in a shameful approach of selling arms to the Saudi regime whilst looking the other way as those very same weapons lead to the steep civilian death toll.

“The UK Government is not just linked to the devastating war in Yemen, it is actively complicit in the crimes being committed in the country – unless it heeds the calls in this latest UN report and immediately halts its arms sales to Saudi Arabia.”

The North East Fife MP continued: “Time and time again we hear of the horrific events unfolding in Yemen, including the abhorrent Saudi-led airstrike on a school bus killing around 40 children just last week.

“It’s high time Theresa May and her new Foreign Secretary stopped selling arms to one side, and instead played a meaningful role in bringing this protracted conflict to an end.”

Despite being the second largest country in the Arabian peninsula, Yemen is the poorest in the region and the upheaval caused by the conflict has put massive strain on its systems, causing widespread food and medicine shortages and a breakdown in sanitation.

Preventable diseases like cholera has added to the people’s suffering, as have fatal attacks on weddings, funerals and more.

According to the new UN report, three-quarters of the 29 million-strong population need humanitarian assistance.

The experts criticised work by the coalition’s Joint Incidents Assessment Team (JIAT), which was set up as a bulwark against possible rights violations.

They questioned the JIAT’s explanations for the air strikes that have killed civilians and challenged its “independence and its ability to carry out impartial investigations”.

Meanwhile, almost a dozen deadly air strikes investigated by the team over the last year were said to “raise serious questions about the targeting process applied by the coalition”.

A spokesperson for the coalition said the report has been passed to its lawyers.

Meanwhile, the Houthis have yet to respond to claims that shelling and snipers from their forces have hit women and children on their way to get food, access medical help or fetch water from wells.

Weapons “with wide area effect” are said to have been used in the city of Taiz and elsewhere, something that in itself violates international humanitarian law.

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Evidence is also said to have been found on widespread arbitrary detention by all sides, with torture and other maltreatment used against individuals.

The pro-government Security Belt force and UAE personnel are further said to have carried out acts of sexual violence.

And children – some understood to be just eight years old – are said to have been conscripted into the hostilities.

On the overall findings, the report stated that there is “reasonable grounds to believe that the governments of Yemen, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are responsible for human rights violations.”

However, Tunisian human rights advocate Kamel Jendoubi, who chaired the group of experts, said: “Despite the gravity of the situation, we still note a total disdain for the suffering of the Yemeni people.”