Oxfam accuses UK government of complicity in Saudi war on Yemen

World leading charity Oxfam condemns the UK’s weapons support for Saudi Arabia, engaged in an aggressive war against Yemen.

Oxfam said at a Geneva conference on Tuesday that the UK was violating the International Arms Trade Treaty, which regulates the transfer of conventional arms to ensure there are no violations of international humanitarian law.
Oxfam UK deputy chief executive, Penny Lawrence, said, “UK arms and military support are fueling a brutal war in Yemen, harming the very people the Arms Trade Treaty is designed to protect.”
Lawrence further said that Britain “misled its own parliament about its oversight of arms sales,” adding that “its international credibility is in jeopardy as it commits to action on paper but does the opposite in reality.”
According to Control Arms Secretariat, the UK authorized an arms license to Saudi Arabia worth $4 billion last year.
Saudi Arabia started an air campaign against Yemen in March 2015 and later launched ground operations to undermine the ruling Houthi Ansarullah movement and its allies.
Nearly 10,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in Riyadh’s military aggression which lacks any international mandate.