Britain is Saudi Arabia’s second arms dealer and accomplice in crimes against the Yemeni people

Statistics show that the British government is the second-largest arms exporter to Saudi Arabia and an accomplice to the Saudi coalition's crimes against the people of Yemen.

According to AAA on Monday, Britain was the world’s sixth-largest arms exporter between 2016 and 2020 and accounted for 3.3 percent of all arms exports. During those years, Britain exported arms to 39 countries around the world, among which West Asia is still the main market for British defense products and Saudi Arabia is the largest buyer of those weapons.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s latest annual report, the U.S. accounted for 79 percent of arms exports to Saudi Arabia between 2016 and 2020, followed by Britain with 9.3 percent. At the same time, Amnesty International acknowledged in a report that “countries that still supply arms to the Saudi-led coalition will go down in history as accomplices to war crimes in Yemen. There is ample evidence that irresponsible strikes with weapons provided by the Saudi-led coalition have resulted in enormous damage to Yemeni civilians.

A UN panel of regional and international experts also believes that these attacks ignore international law and the lives, dignity, and rights of the Yemeni people. In a June 2019 lawsuit, Britain’s highest court, following a complaint by the campaign against the British government’s arms trade, ordered the suspension and review of arms sales licenses to Saudi Arabia. According to the campaign’s report against arms sales, most of Britain’s arms sales to Riyadh are based on an obscure system of open licenses where the true value of the contracts is not specified.

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