Pressure is mounting on David Cameron to explain the role of British military personnel in the Saudi-led bombing campaign of Yemen after a UN panel ruled the operation contravened international humanitarian law.
Jeremy Corbyn and Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary, sent a joint letter to the prime minister on Wednesday asking for details about British involvement after a leaked copy of the panel’s report concluded there had been “widespread and systematic” attacks on the civilian population.
The 51-page report, sent to the UN security council last week and obtained by the Guardian, documented 119 sorties by the Saudi-led coalition that were linked to violations of international law.
It said that many of the attacks “involved multiple airstrikes on multiple civilian objects”. It added: “Of the 119 sorties, the panel identified 146 targeted objects. The panel also documented three alleged cases of civilians fleeing residential bombings and being chased and shot at by helicopters.”
In another key finding it said: “The panel documented that the coalition had conducted airstrikes targeting civilians and civilian objects, in violation of international humanitarian law, including camps for internally displaced persons and refugees; civilian gatherings, including weddings; civilian vehicles, including buses; civilian residential areas; medical facilities; schools; mosques; markets, factories and food storage warehouses; and other essential civilian infrastructure, such as the airport in Sana’a, the port in Hudaydah and domestic transit routes.”
Yemen’s civil war began when the Houthi rebels, allied with a former Yemeni president, overran the capital in September 2014. In March 2015, a coalition of countries led by Saudi Arabia began airstrikes and, later, a ground operation to retake the country. More than 5,800 people have been killed and more than 80% of Yemen’s population is in dire need of food, water and other aid, according to the UN.
The UK has been furtive about its role in the bombing campaign, with details trickling out only gradually. Earlier this month, the Saudis revealed that UK and US staff were in the command and control centre where the bombing operations are directed.
The Ministry of Defence has refused to reveal how many personnel are involved, saying only it is a small team and insisting its role is not operational. On Wednesday, a spokesperson said: “UK military personnel are not directly involved in Saudi-led coalition operations. We are offering Saudi Arabia advice and training on best-practice targeting techniques to help ensure continued compliance with international humanitarian law.”
After prime minister’s question time, at which Corbyn called for an independent inquiry into the UK’s arms exports policy to Saudi Arabia, the Labour leader and Benn wrote to Cameron. In their letter, they ask him to “set out the exact nature of the involvement of UK personnel working with the Saudi military”.
They add: “Can you confirm whether the British government has received any reports from these UK personnel of actions that might constitute a potential breach of international humanitarian law?”
The question is aimed at establishing whether, if the role of the British team is to advise that an attack on a residential area would contravene humanitarian law, that advice has always been taken.
The two called on the prime minster to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia. “In the light of continuing reports from the United Nations and other organisations of breaches of international humanitarian law in the conflict with Yemen, we are writing to call on you to launch immediately a full review of arms export licences to Saudi Arabia and to suspend arms sales to that country until the review has been concluded.”
According to the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia totalled £2.95bn for the first nine months of 2015, and about £7bn since Cameron took office, including a contract for 72 Eurofighter Typhoon jets.
David Mepham, UK director of Human Rights Watch, said the findings of the UN report “flatly contradict repeated statements made by British ministers about the actions of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen”.
“For almost a year, [foreign secretary] Philip Hammond has made the false and misleading claim that there is no evidence of law or war violations by the UK’s Saudi ally and other members of the coalition.
