Oxfam’s Ruth Tanner and Gary Bennett on Britain’s indirect involvement in the war in Yemen and its breaches of a court order barring the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia

Bethan McKernan’s recent reports from Yemen (‘There were 200 people here. Now it’s just ghosts’, 30 September; Three conflicts in one: Aden’s shifting alliances and a new separatist front, 1 October) painted a visceral and sadly accurate picture of the devastating humanitarian crisis that Yemenis have been suffering for more than four years.

While she rightly touches on the involvement of the UK in the conflict as suppliers of arms and technical expertise to Saudi Arabia and other members of the coalition, it’s worth underlining that the UK also isn’t doing enough to end this conflict.

It’s true that the UK has pledged aid money for Yemen. But it’s time for the government to respect the ruling of the appeal court earlier this year and immediately halt all arms sales to Saudi. As the “penholder” on Yemen at the UN security council, with the responsibility for drafting resolutions, the UK is in a unique position to push for a nationwide ceasefire and urge warring parties to return to the negotiating table, to ultimately put an end to the suffering of millions of Yemenis who face hunger, disease, death and destruction on a daily basis.

Ruth Tanner

Head of humanitarian campaigns, Oxfam

• Very disturbing to see Liz Truss, the international trade secretary, admitting for a second time that somehow under her watch the UK has breached a court order banning the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia (Report, 27 September 2019). Even more alarmingly, she suggests that other such breaches may yet be discovered. I wonder if her unreserved apology for this failure is yet another example of bad news being hidden beneath the aftermath of the supreme court decision on prorogation and her boss’s aggressive, media-catching response?

Gary Bennett

Exeter

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