Reuters: War crimes in Yemen fuelled by arms deals

The weapons provided by foreign forces to fuel the six-year-old war in Yemen and the continuation of the Saudi coalition’s deadly bombing and air strikes on Yemen have claimed thousands of civilian lives, including children and women, UN Group of Eminent International and Regional Experts on Yemen said in a report released on Wednesday.

.According to Reuters, investigators added that the air strikes amounted to war crimes, the third year in a row that independent experts found that the Saudi coalition violated international law.

The UN  group said in a report entitled titled ‘Yemen: A Pandemic of Impunity in a Tortured Land’, Countries including Britain, Canada, France and the United States have continued to support them with arms deals” to continue the war against a poverty-stricken country.

“After years of documenting the heavy losses of this war, no one can say “We didn’t know what was happening in Yemen,” said Kamel Jendoubi, head of the group of experts.

The experts urged the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Yemen to the International Criminal Court for possible prosecutions, including a violent 2020 coalition airstrike on civilians in jawf governorate that killed and injured nearly 50 civilians.

The UN group said the restrictions imposed by the coalition on imports and access to the port of Hodeidah contributed to the shortage of fuel and other necessities and inflation, exacerbating the economic and humanitarian crisis.

E.M