Canada among countries fuelling Yemen war, says UN 

A UN report released yesterday has named Canada for the first time among the countries that are fuelling the war in Yemen. The findings cover June 2019 to June 2020 and were made by a panel of independent experts who have been monitoring the conflict.

For the third successive year, the UN has found that the US, Britain and France “continued their support of parties to the conflict including through arms transfers, thereby helping to perpetuate the conflict.”

However, law Professor Ardi Imseis announced at a news conference on behalf of the panel that Canada had been added to the list due to an increase in arms sales last year. “We therefore reiterate our call for states to stop transferring arms to the parties to the conflict,” he said. Spain, Poland and Italy have also been complicit in such sales.

Another panel member, Melissa Parke, told journalists that, “Responsibility for these violations rests with all the parties to the conflict, namely the government of Yemen, de facto authorities [the Houthis], the Southern Transitional Council and members of the coalition, in particular Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.”

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The panel also found that four air strikes involved failures to take all necessary measures to protect civilians, thus highlighting the fact that disproportionate attacks constitute war crimes under customary international law. They also identified mortar attacks by Houthi forces which hit a prison in the city of Taiz in April, and said that this too could constitute a war crime. The attack reportedly killed six women and two girls.

Last year footage released by the Houthis of a cross-border raid against Saudi forces showed what appeared to be damaged Canadian-made light armoured vehicles.

The war is currently in its fifth year and has claimed more than 100,000 lives. Moreover, Yemen has been described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis by the UN.

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