Five years of arms deals worth £4.7bn: Britain’s role in a war that has killed nearly 100,000

It’s probably not a stretch to say that most Britons would struggle to find Yemen on a map. And yet for almost five years our government has played a major role in a deadly conflict that has cost tens of thousands of Yemeni lives.

British bombs, missiles, planes and helicopters have been central to a military campaign that has contributed to what the UN has described as “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis”.

Campaigners have long argued that continuing to grant export licences for weapons sales to Saudi Arabia was illegal due to the clear risk that the arms might be used in violation of international humanitarian law.

And in the face of overwhelming evidence that the Saudi-led coalition was doing just that, British arms sales continued undisturbed.

UK involvement began in 2015, when Saudi Arabia intervened in the country’s civil war to reinstate the internationally recognised government of Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, who was ousted by Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

During that time, the British government has licensed more than £4.7bn worth of arms sales to the coalition. Britain’s support was not only material: some 6,000 UK contractors have been hired to help Saudi forces carry out their operations.

The Houthis are by no means blameless in Yemen’s catastrophe, and they too have been responsible for repeated crimes against civilians.

But how and why the UK got involved is less important than the way in which the war has been conducted.

According to the most recent data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, almost 100,000 people have been killed since the start of the conflict – including more than 10,000 civilians. About two-thirds of civilian deaths have been caused by Saudi-led coalition airstrikes.

The severity of these atrocities has stood in stark contrast to the language of diplomacy used by British officials to defend the profitable trade. The foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, justified the sales by citing the necessity of maintaining Britain’s “influence” over the course of events in Yemen.

The government has insisted that its rules on arms exports are “rigorous” and “robust”. But this week, that argument has been successfully challenged.

On Thursday, the court of appeal ruled that the British government had “made no attempt” to find out whether the Saudi-led coalition had breached international law, and “must reconsider the matter” with regard to any future arms sales.

What does this mean in practice? It means that the government will now be forced to properly assess Saudi Arabia’s record in Yemen when deciding whether it should continue to sell weapons to the kingdom.

Whether the court’s decision will have a lasting effect is unclear. The government responded to the ruling by announcing that it would temporarily halt new licences, but added that it would challenge the decision.

The Saudi-led coalition has admitted to causing civilian casualties in the past, but attributes the deaths to “unintentional mistakes”, and says it is committed to upholding international law.

The UK will now have to make the case that there is “no clear risk” of British weapons being used to commit war crimes in Yemen.

No clear risk, in a conflict which UN experts say has been “marked by repeated airstrikes on public spaces including market places, funerals, civilian boats, detention facilities and hospitals”, and in which “there is little evidence of any attempt by parties to the conflict to minimise civilian casualties”.

No clear risk, after Human Rights Watch has documented 90 “apparently unlawful coalition airstrikes”, and where last year, a wedding party and a bus filled with children were among the targets hit by Britain’s allies.