By Sam Jones
The British government is risking its status as a global humanitarian power by continuing to sell weapons bound for use in Yemen, where the conflict is killing three children every day, Save the Children has warned. In a strongly worded intervention accompanying a report on Yemen, the international charity has accused the UK of appearing to put politics and profit above the protection of children.
"The UK prides itself on being a world leader on responding to humanitarian crises, yet its reluctance to publicly condemn the human cost of conflict in Yemen gives the impression that diplomatic relations and arms sales trump the lives of Yemen’s children," said Edward Santiago, Save the Children’s country director inYemen. "The UK government must not stand by while children are being bombed; it must demand that civilian lives and civilian facilities like hospitals are protected."
Some 5,700 civilians - among them more than 630 children - have died in Yemen since the current fighting erupted at the end of March whenthe Saudi Arabia-led coalition began a campaign to force Houthi rebels from their strongholds.
The UK - which is a major supplier of weapons to Saudi Arabia - is facing increasing calls to stop the sale of arms because of the devastating effect that explosive weapons are having on civilians in populated areas of Yemen.
According to the UN, 73% of the child deaths and injuries during the second quarter of this year were caused by Saudi-led coalition airstrikes, while 18% of child deaths and 17% of child injuries have been attributed to Houthi forces.
The UN estimates that some 4,500 civilians were killed or injured by these weapons in Yemen during the first seven months of this year - more than died or were wounded in any other country or crisis over the same period.
In its report on the proliferation of explosive weapons, entitled Nowhere Safe for Yemen’s Children, Save the Children concludes that the widespread use of such arms has now afforded Yemen "the dubious status, alongside Syria, as the most dangerous place in the world for explosive violence as of November 2015".
Since March, it says, more than 1,500 children have been killed or injured in the country, many of them through the use of explosive weapons such as missiles, large aircraft bombs, artillery shells, rockets, mortars and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The NGO also says the true number of children killed may be far higher than the 637 verified deaths because of the difficulty of gathering data in a warzone.
The report has collected testimony from children who have witnessed the death and destruction caused by airstrikes and shelling.
Raja’a, seven, watched as her mother tried to flee a missile strike. "I ran to my mother but the missile hit the building as she was trying to get out with my brother and sister. I saw my mum burning in front of me. Then I fell down, and later I found myself in the hospital and my body was injured. I didn’t find my mum beside me as always. Later, I found out she, my brother and sister had died."
One teenager, Zaid, 15, recalls the day an airstrike killed his brother as he was playing outside. After hearing an explosion, Zaid ran out of his house to look for him. "I saw lots of people standing around the bodies, and injured people. Then I saw that my brother was lying on the ground. He was missing his arm and his body was burnt. Before my brother’s death I was not afraid. But now I stay at home all the time as I am too scared to be outside on the street."
The report also chronicles the extent to which hospitals in conflict-affected areas have been attacked or damaged. By late October 2015, according to the UN, 69 health facilities were reported to have been fully or partially damaged in the fighting.
"They are running out of medical and other essential supplies, or are desperately understaffed as health workers have been killed, injured and forced to flee the violence," says the report. "In at least 18 out of 22 governorates, hospitals have been closed or are severely affected, leaving an estimated 14.1 million people without access to basic healthcare, let alone the emergency surgery and other services needed to treat shrapnel wounds and other serious injuries caused to children by explosive weapons."
As well as calling for the UK and others to halt arms sales to parties now fighting in Yemen, Save the Children is pressing for an immediate ceasefire, and urging all parties to the conflict to stop using large explosive weapons in populated areas.
A government spokeswoman said: "The UK is supportive of Saudi-led coalition military intervention, which came at the request of President Hadi, to deter aggression by the Houthis, and allow for the return of the legitimate Yemeni government. We have been clear with all parties that action must comply with international humanitarian law, and we are offering advice and training to the Saudis to demonstrate best practice and to help ensure continued compliance.
"The UK is providing support to the Saudi Arabian armed forces through pre-existing arrangements. [The government] takes its arms export responsibilities very seriously and operates one of the most robust arms export control regimes in the world. We rigorously examine every application on a case-by-case basis against the consolidated EU and national arms export licensing criteria.
Risks around human rights violations are a key part of our assessment against the consolidated criteria. We do not export equipment where we assess there is a clear risk that it might be used for internal repression, or would provoke or prolong conflict within a country, or would be used aggressively against another country."
Houthi rebels seized the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, in January and pushed south and east in March and April. In early July, the UN declared Yemen a level-3 humanitarian emergency, the highest on its scale, warning that nearly half the country’s regions were facing a food crisis.
