The UK The Guardian daily posted an article on Monday urging Britain to stop arms sales that “are fuelling a cruel and pointless war” in Yemen.
“If we can’t stop the conflict, we should at least stop enabling it,” the daily said.
Entitled “The Guardian view on Yemen: stop helping the killing,” the article called on the British government to stop selling weapons to Riyadh that is leading the coalition war on Yemen since more than 18 months.
“It is becoming harder to turn a blind eye to the suffering in Yemen, though plenty of people in London and Washington are trying,” it said, recalling that “in the last month alone, the bombing of a funeral, killing at least 140 people, the strike on a prison, taking 58 more lives, and photographs of skeletal teenagers have all testified to the devastating impact of an overlooked war.”
The newspaper noted that since the Saudi-US war broke out in March 2015 at least 10,000 have died, including 4,000 civilians.
It added that “the impoverished country struggled even in peacetime. Now more than 3 million have been displaced; 14 million are going hungry. Four out of five Yemenis need aid” due to “heavy bombing by the Saudi Arabian-led coalition” that “has claimed an inordinate number of civilian lives … and it is done with arms and military support from the US, the UK and others.”
The article highlighted that the UK has licensed £3.3bn worth of sales to Saudi Arabia since the war on Yemen began, while it boasts of increasing aid by £37m.
“The pledge would be laughable if it was not so shameful. By August, the damage caused by war already stood at an estimated $14bn. The aid will go only a short way to repairing that – and no sum can restore lost limbs or revive the dead,” it read.
“Such contradictions are fuelling calls by both US and UK politicians for a halt to arms sales and support. Beside the overwhelming moral case is the legal one: arms cannot be sold where there is a clear risk that they will be used in breach of international humanitarian law,” the British daily pointed out.
It concluded the article by urging the US and Britain to halt arms sales now, justifying that “each day of delay means more stunted children, more maimings, more homes destroyed, more lives torn apart, more deaths by starvation or bombardment.”
“There is no time to lose. Britain and the US should,” the article ended up stating.
Source: Al-Manar Website
