Saudis ‘must stop starving Yemen’
Mordaunt warns British ally it could be breaking international law by blockading rebel areas as she announces £50m aid
‘Unless this aid gets through we think about 150,000 children may perish in the next few months’
SAUDI ARABIA has “no excuses” for blocking food and fuel shipments to Yemen and could be in breach of international humanitarian law if it continues to do so, a Cabinet minister has said, in the strongest rebuke yet to a key ally of Britain.
Penny Mordaunt, the International Development Secretary, said that Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the UK could be damaged if Riyadh did not act to ease restrictions which she warned could push the country into the “worst famine in decades”.
Ms Mordaunt flew to Riyadh yesterday to push for an end to restrictions on deliveries of food, fuel and medical supplies to rebel areas imposed by Saudi-led coalition forces last month.
Speaking exclusively to The Daily
Telegraph in Djibouti before her visit, Ms Mordaunt stressed that Britain “fully appreciates” the 10-nation coalition’s security concerns and supported its right to screen shipping to prevent military supplies entering rebel-held areas.
But she said it had “no excuse” for blocking ships that had been screened, adding: “It is very clear that if you are using starvation as a weapon you are in breach of international humanitarian law. And what I have seen on my visit is that what is being held up is aid.
“Unless this gets through we think that about 150,000 children may perish in the next few months. Already about 400,000 are severely malnourished and the death rate is going to increase dramatically if we don’t get food, but also critically fuel, in as well.”
Ms Mordaunt yesterday met Saudi officials including Adel al-jubeir, the foreign minister, and Prince Fahd bin Turki, the commander of the Saudi-led coalition forces, in Riyadh to request urgent access for all cleared vessels bound for Hodeidah and Saleef, ports controlled by Houthi rebels.
“She received assurances that swift action would be taken and will be reviewing this closely,” the Department for International Development said in a statement after the talks.
“I very much understand the strategic importance of our relationship with Saudi Arabia. But we do not help that relationship by not speaking about the facts of the matter,” said Ms Mordaunt.
“If there were to be a breach of international humanitarian law, that would put that relationship into difficulty.”
The coalition led by Saudi Arabia has been fighting on the side of the Yemeni government against Houthi rebels, who are backed by Iran, since March 2015. The coalition imposed a blockade on aid and commercial shipping to rebel-held parts of Yemen on Nov 6, two days after a missile presumably fired by Houthi forces nearly hit Riyadh airport.
Saudi Arabia has said it fears ships have been used for arms smuggling and that the United Nations-run inspection system that is meant to prevent it is inadequate. Although restrictions on some aid shipments have been eased since Nov 26, humanitarian agencies have warned that deliveries are still bottle-necked.
Aid waiting in warehouses at the World Food Programme’s aid depot in Djibouti, a voyage across the Bab-elmandeb strait from Yemen, on Saturday included vaccinations for cholera and high-nutrition paste for malnourished children.
Speaking after meeting UN inspectors and aid officials in Djibouti shortly before she flew to Riyadh, Ms Mordaunt announced £50 million of additional aid to Yemen, including to buy fuel and provide food for 3.4 million people. She also said specialist British teams would
be deployed to conduct extra screening of ships entering the port of Hodeidah, on Yemen’s Red Sea coast, in an attempt to assuage Saudi concerns.
She said that she believed there was no legitimate reason to doubt the screening process now in place, and for the first time suggested that the UK could take punitive action if the issue was not resolved quickly.
“I’ve got a good understanding of how it all works, and I will be going to my meetings [on Sunday] to say what I have seen today, which is that there should be no excuse for not letting cleared ships into Hodeidah,” she said.
She added that the Government would expect action “in short order” and that Britain could not “carry on as we have been” if there was no improvement in the situation.
“I am in discussion with my colleagues about what that might entail,” she said.
Aid agencies have described the humanitarian situation in Yemen as “exceptional” and possibly one of the worst crises in recent history.
Yemen relies on imports for 90 per cent of its food and fuel even in peace time. The UN estimates that three million women and children are suffering acute malnutrition. About 11 million people, out of a population of 27 million, are thought to be relying on some form of outside help to survive.
Meanwhile, nearly one million people have fallen ill in what is believed to be the worst cholera epidemic on record, and a chronic fuel shortage has left critical infrastructure including water pumping stations, sewage treatment plants and hospitals struggling to function. No fuel has been delivered to Hodeidah and Saleef since the blockade was put in place in Nov 6, The Telegraph understands.
Ms Mordaunt’s visit comes two weeks after Theresa May raised concerns over the Yemen blockade during a meeting with Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, in Riyadh.
Earlier in November Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, said he urged Prince Mohammed to reopen the ports and reopen Sana’a airport to UN aid flights.
The humanitarian crisis in Yemen has presented the British Government with a dilemma because Saudi Arabia is a key ally and major customer for the UK arms industry.
Britain has licensed some £4.6 billion of arms sales to Saudi Arabia since the war in Yemen began in March 2015.
In October Sir Michael Fallon, before his resignation as defence secretary, said criticism of Saudi Arabia in the House of Commons was “not helpful” to efforts to secure a sale of new Typhoon jets to the country.
Last year the Ministry of Defence admitted military personnel were advising the coalition on selection of targets for airstrikes to help them comply with international humanitarian law.
The MOD told The Telegraph this week that there were currently only a “small number” of liaison officers deployed with the coalition in a purely observer role.
“They do not provide training, they do not provide advice on [humanitarian law] compliance, and they have no role in the Saudi targeting chain,” the MOD said in a statement.