MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Oxfam said it had received a legal opinion the UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia were in violation of Britain’s national, regional and international arms transfer obligations under three different regulations including the Arms Trade Treaty, which the United Kingdom has strongly supported.
"UK arms and military support are fuelling a brutal war in Yemen, harming the very people the Arms Trade Treaty is designed to protect. Schools, hospitals and homes have been bombed in contravention of the rules of war," Oxfam quoted its Deputy Chief Executive Penny Lawrence as saying in the statement.
According to the statement, the UK government is "in denial and disarray" over selling arms to Riyadh while the Saudi-led coalition carries out airstrikes in Yemen.
"It has misled its own parliament about its oversight of arms sales and its international credibility is in jeopardy as it commits to action on paper but does the opposite in reality. How can the Government insist that others abide by a treaty it helped set up if it flagrantly ignores it?" the statement reads.
The Oxfam statement is set to be presented at the second Conference of State Parties to the treaty in Geneva later on Tuesday.
Yemen has been engulfed in a military conflict between the government headed by Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and Houthi rebels, the country’s main opposition force. Since March 2015, the Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out airstrikes against the Houthis at Hadi's request.
According to UN data, the majority of the 3,700 civilian deaths over the course of the conflict have been caused by the Saudi-led coalition airstrikes.
