Iran Press/Europe: Despite the introduction of an international treaty to limit the sale of weapons research has revealed that Britain's arms sales to Saudi Arabia and its allies in their aggression on Yemen have seen an almost 50-percent rise over the past five years, The Independent reported.
Successive British governments had pushed for the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which came into force at the end of 2014, to better regulate the global arms trade.
Yet since January 2015, £6.4bn worth of UK arms have been sold to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and their coalition partners fighting in Yemen, according to Oxfam.
The total compares to £4.4bn worth of UK weapons sales approved to the same eight countries in the five years up to December 2014.
“This rise in arms sales should be a stain on our conscience,” said Ruth Tanner, Oxfam’s head of humanitarian campaigns. “The Yemenis who’ve had to flee their homes, go without food and clean water, and endure outbreaks of the disease need an end to this war and a chance to rebuild their lives.”
Backed by the United States, the Saudi regime and some of its Arab allies invaded Yemen in 2015 and have enforced a strict blockade of the country by ground, air, and sea ever since.
The Saudi war has affected over seven million children in Yemen who now face a serious threat of famine, according to UNICEF figures.
Over 6,000 children have either been killed or sustained serious injuries since 2015, the UN children’s agency said. The humanitarian situation in the country has also been exacerbated by outbreaks of cholera, polio, and measles.
The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the war in Yemen has claimed more than 91,000 lives over the past four and a half years.
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