[HODHODYEMENNEWS] Oxfam unveiled that "At least 87 non-combatants were killed by
...
KABOOM!...
s from the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of...
using weapons supplied by the UK and US between January 2021 and February 2022."
The charity accused the UK government of ignoring an identifiable "pattern of harm" caused by the indiscriminate bombing — and argues it amounts to legal grounds for Britannia to end elements of its lucrative arms trade with Riyadh.
Martin Butcher, a policy adviser at Oxfam, said that there had been 431 airstrikes in the period monitored, roughly one a day, and that the "intensity of these attacks would not have been possible without a ready supply of arms."
The sheer number of attacks, the 87 civilians killed and 136 maimed amounted to, Butcher added, "a pattern of violence against civilians" which all parties to the conflict, including arms suppliers, had failed to prevent.
A further 13 airstrikes carried out by British or American-made jets had taken place on hospitals and clinics, the Oxfam research added, with farms and homes routinely hit. Civilians were forced to leave their homes or places of shelter after a total of 293 raids from the air.
According to the charity, "The Saudi air force uses Typhoon and Tornado aircraft sold and maintained by Britannia and F-15s from the US."
Some of the bombs used, such as the Paveway IV, are made in the UK — and the Campaign Against Arms Trade [CAAT] estimates that the total value of UK arms sales to Saudi since it began its aggression on Yemen war in 2015 to be £23bn.
At the end of this month, the high court will hear a fresh appeal from CAAT against the UK’s decision to resume the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Fifteen of the nineteen WTC hijackers were Saudis, and most major jihadi commanders were Saudis, to include Osama bin Laden. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman quietly folded that tent in 2016, doing terrible things to the guys running it, and has since been dragging the kingdom into the current century...that could be used in Yemen in 2020. It stresses that the UK is acting unlawfully by ignoring potential war crimes.
Then trade secretary Liz Truss had ordered the restart — halted because CAAT won an earlier case at the court of appeal — after a review concluded there had been only "isolated incidents" of airstrikes that breached humanitarian law.