Pressure Group Urges UK to Impose Arms Embargo on Saudis Over Yemen Raids

Andrew Smith of the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) said that the UK government needs to take responsibility by announcing a full embargo on all arms sales to Saudi Arabia and holding an urgent investigation into whether UK weapons have been used.

DUNDEE (Sputnik), Mark Hirst – The British government should impose an immediate embargo on arms sales to Saudi Arabia following the military operation it is leading in Yemen, a UK-based campaign against the arms trade told Sputnik on Tuesday.

"The government needs to take responsibility by announcing a full embargo on all arms sales to Saudi Arabia and holding an urgent investigation into whether UK weapons have been used," Andrew Smith of the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) said.

Smith's comments come as concerns are rising over the Saudi-led military operation which, NGOs and human rights groups claim, has led directly to the deaths of scores of civilians. Some allegations suggest that UK-supplied fighter jets have been behind some of the worst incidents.

"Unfortunately the UK has sold large numbers of fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, so there is every reason to believe they have been involved in the bombing. Airstrikes have a devastating impact on infrastructure and kill indiscriminately," Smith added.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in an exclusive interview with Rossiya Segodnya news agency's general director, Dmitry Kiselev, said that the Saudi-led operation had no "international legal foundation."

A coalition of Arab states led by Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen on March 25, following a request for military assistance from the country's displaced President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

The military operation has been driving up the civilian death toll, with more than 70 children killed in Yemen since the start of the onslaught, according to the UN children's agency UNICEF.