A Woman in Black protester in central London hands out leaflets highlighting Britain’s arms exports to Saudi Arabia | Credit: Alisdare Hickson Flickr — CC BY-SA 2.0

British and American bombs have killed and injured nearly 1,000 civilians, including over 120 children in Yemen, since the start of the war in 2015, a new report has revealed.

The 128-page investigation conducted by the University Network for Human Rights (UNHR) and Yemeni monitoring group Mwatana, investigated 27 “apparently unlawful airstrikes” launched in Yemen by the Gulf States Coalition Forces between April 2015 and April 2018.

The report titled; “Day of Judgement — The Role of the US and Europe in Civilian Death, Destruction, and Trauma in Yemen” is extensive and detailed in nature.

The authors have been sure to only present cases were the evidence is sufficient. After all, accusing a so-called civilised state of crimes against humanity isn’t something you want to be wrong on.

After conducting interviews and gathering physical evidence on the ground in Yemen, they found that in all of the 27 airstrikes invesigated, US or UK made weapons were probably used.

At least 203 civilians were killed and nearly 750 injured. The report also highlighted that 120 children and at least 56 women were among the dead and wounded.

The group could only investigate the 27 strikes in the report due to the situation on the ground in Yemen. However, Mwatana claims that in 2018 alone, there were possibly 128 unlawful airstrikes.

Whilst reports of US munitions have been confirmed before, this is the first time that UK arms have been confirmed to have been used in potentially unlawful airstrikes.

Ruhan Nagra, of the University Human Rights Network, which co-authored the new report said;

“This report shows there is a pattern of apparently unlawful airstrikes in which western weapons have been used by the coalition. It is evidence that the US and the UK have been playing a role in the slaughter and devastation that is happening in Yemen right now “The conversation so far in the UK has been about the ‘risk’ of UK weapons being used in unlawful strikes … This report shows it isn’t about the risk anymore, UK arms are already being used, repeatedly. And the companies that produced these weapons, Raytheon and GEC-Marconi Dynamics, are implicated, too.”

UK-based Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) say the UK have licensed a staggering £4.7bn worth arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and around £585m to the UAE since the war began in 2015.

As far back as 2016 The International Development Committee and Business, Innovation and Skills Committee concluded in their 2016 joint report:

“Given that the UK has a long history of defence exports to Saudi ARabia and its coalition partners, and considering the evidence we heard, it seems inevitable that any violations of international humanitarian and human rights law by the coalition have involved arms supplied from the UK.”

“US and UK personnel may be liable for aiding and abetting war crimes”

On page 112 of the report a claim that has gone largely unreported is the fact the US and UK officials could be liable for aiding and abetting war crimes in Yemen. It supports this claim by saying’

“Assistance including arms sales, provision of intelligence, and logistical support would have a substantial effect on the commission of these crimes. The well-publicised, repeated pattern of these violations since 2015 means that the countries and officials continuing to provide these types of support almost certainly knew that continued assistance was substantially likely to assist in the commission of war crimes.”

While the US Government is keen to call out others to be prosecuted for war crimes, they don’t recognised the International Criminal Court (ICC) themselves. This is the most likely place that suspected war criminals would face trial.

Despite the mounting evidence and calls from the House of Lords to halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the Conservative Government are showing now signs of halting sales soon.

Mwatana also said in the report: