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Yemen crisis: Calls for UK Government to investigate whether British-supplied jets were used in Saudi airstrike on refugee camp which left dozens dead

Campaign groups are demanding the introduction of a 'full embargo on all arms sales to Saudi Arabia'

Tuesday 31 March 2015 21:37 BST

Jet fighters of the Saudi Royal air force. File photo (Getty)

The Government is facing calls to investigate whether British-supplied jets flown by Saudi Arabian forces were used in an airstrike on a Yemeni refugee camp which left dozens dead.

Aid workers said that up to 40 people were killed and 200 injured in the raid on Monday at the Al Mazraq camp which was blamed on Saudi forces leading a pan-Arab coalition to halt the advance of the Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen.

A pro-Houthi television station has broadcast footage which claimed to show the bodies of victims and casualties, including children, from the attack on the camp housing thousands of displaced Yemenis in the northwestern province of Hajjah, close to the Saudi border.

As Saudi and Houthi forces continued to exchange heavy fire across the border, aid agencies expressed alarm at high civilian casualties from the five days of air strikes across Yemen, which the United Nations in Geneva said had killed at least 93 civilians and left 364 wounded.

Media including the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television station reported that British-made Tornado and UK-supplied Typhoon jets are among the 100 Saudi jets being used in the ongoing operation to destroy the Shi’ite militia which last week forced the Yemeni president to flee the country.

The ten-nation force continues to pound Houthi positions, for the first time using warships to bomb the rebel-held airport and eastern outskirts of the port city of Aden.

Iran called for talks between all sides but the Yemeni foreign minister, Riyadh Yasseen, called for an Arab ground intervention in the country “as soon as possible”.

The Saudi authorities said all steps were being taken to avoid civilian casualties and that they were seeking clarification of the incident at Al Mazraq, amid suggestions that the refugee camp may have been being used as a base for Houthi fighters.

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Yemeni refugees

Yemeni refugees carry water to their tent at the Mazraq internally displaced people's camp in the northwestern province of Hajja

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Yemeni refugees

A displaced man from Yemen's Saada province amid UNHCR tents at a camp set up by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Mazraq in Yemen's Hajja region, 360 kms northwest of Sanaa

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Yemeni refugees

Yemeni refugees queue to get food aid at the Marzaq internally displaced people's camp in Harad in the northwestern province of Hajjah

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Yemeni refugees

Displaced Yemenis from al-Jaachan Al-Ansin, a village in the province of Ibb, some 200km South-East of Sanaa, stand next to their tents in a makeshift refugee camp in Sanaa

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Yemeni refugees

Yemeni refugees walk to a refugee camp in the southern Saudi province of Jizan after crossing the border from Yemen into Saudi Arabia

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Syrian refugees

Syrian refugees arrive in Turkey at the Cilvegozu crossing gate of Reyhanli, in Hatay. The number of people driven from their homes by conflict and crisis has topped 50 million for the first time since World War II, with Syrians hardest hit, the UN refugee agency (UNCHR) said, in an annual report released on World Refugee Day

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Syrian refugees

Syrian refugees walking among tents at Karkamis' refugee camp near the town of Gaziantep, south of Turkey

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Sudanese refugees

South Sudanese refugees waiting for food in the Kule refugee camp near the Pagak Border Entry point in the Gambella Region, Ethiopia

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African refugees

African refugees live homelessly at a temporary shelter beside a road on World Refugee Day in Sana'a, Yemen. The number of African refugees who have come to Yemen during the past few years has reached 750,000, most of them are Somalis

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Iraqi refugees

An Iraqi refugee girl from Mosul stands outside her family's tent at Khazir refugee camp outside Irbil, 217 miles (350 kilometers) north of Baghdad, Iraq. The militants' capture of Iraq's cities of Mosul and Tikrit makes their dream of a new Islamic state look more realistic. It already controlled a swath of eastern Syria along the Euphrates River, with a spottier presence extending further west nearly to Aleppo, Syria's largest city. In Raqqa, the biggest city it holds in Syria, it imposes taxes, rebuilds bridges and enforces the law - its strict version of Shariah

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Iraqi refugees

Refugees queue to register at a temporary camp in northern Iraq

Getty Images

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Syrian refugees

A young Syrian refugee stands near jerry cans used to collect water at Al-Zaatri refugee camp in the Jordanian city of Mafraq, near the border with Syria. The United Nations hopes that political talks between the warring sides in Syria will clinch local ceasefires to allow vital food and medicines to reach millions of civilians

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A child refugee from the northern province of Raqqa in Syria, reacts from the cold weather in a Syrian refugee camp beside the Lebanese border town of Arsal, in eastern Bekaa Valley

Reuters

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Syrian refugees

Boys help their father remove snow in front of their tent in the Azaz refugee camp

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Syrian refugees

A Syrian refugee family from Aleppo crosses the Bosphorus from Uskudar to the European side of Istanbul

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Syrian refugees

A child refugee stands next to a home constructed using a billboard in the settlement of Qab Elias in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon

PA

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Syrian refugees

Refugee baby Rim in the settlement of Qab Elias in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon

PA

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African refugees

Refugees arriving at a camp near Bossangoa, 190 miles north of Bangui, the capital. Forty-one thousand people fled their homes following mass executions in the area

Juan Carlos Tomasi/Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders

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Syrian refugees

Representatives of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a deeply divided opposition, world powers and regional bodies started a long-delayed peace conference aimed at bringing an end to a nearly three-year civil war

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Iraqi refugees

A women and a girl wash at a tap at a temporary displacement camp set up next to a Kurdish checkpoint in Kalak. Thousands of people have fled Iraq's second city of Mosul after it was overrun by Isis (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) militants. Many have been temporarily housed at various IDP (internally displaced persons) camps around the region including the area close to Erbil, as they hope to enter the safety of the nearby Kurdish region

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Iraqi refugees

Families arrive at a Kurdish checkpoint next to a temporary displacement camp in Kalak

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Iraqi refugees

An Iraqi refugee girl from Mosul stands outside her family's tent at Khazir refugee camp outside Irbil, 217 miles (350 kilometers) north of Baghdad, Iraq. Days after Iraq's second-largest city fell to Isis fighters, some Iraqis are already returning to Mosul, lured back by insurgents offering cheap gas and food, restoring power and water and removing traffic barricades

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Iraqi refugees

A girl, who fled from the violence in Mosul, carries a case of water at a camp on the outskirts of Arbil in Iraq's Kurdistan region

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Iraqi refugees

A displaced Iraqi woman washes her family's laundry as the children shower outside their tent at a temporary camp set up to shelter civilians fleeing violence in Iraq's northern Nineveh province in Aski kalak, 40 kms west of the Kurdish autonomous region's capital Arbil

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Iraqi refugees

Iraqi refugees from Mosul arrive at Khazir refugee camp outside Irbil, 217 miles (350 kilometers) north of Baghdad

AP

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Sudanese refugees

The international Red Cross said that the road from Bor to the nearby Awerial area 'is lined with thousands of people' waiting for boats so they could cross the Nile River and that the gathering of displaced 'is the largest single identified concentration of displaced people in the country so far'

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Sudanese refugees

People unload the few belongings at Minkammen, that they were able to bring with them to the camps

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Sudanese refugees

Thousands of exhausted civilians are crowding into the fishing village of Minkammen, a once-tiny riverbank settlement of a few thatch huts 25 kilometres (20 miles) southwest of Bor

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Sudanese refugees

Many people had spent days hiding out in the bush outside Bor as gunmen battled for control of the town, which has exchanged hands three times in the conflict, and remains in rebel control

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Sudanese refugees

A young boy pulls his suitcase of belongings as he walks to find a place to rest after getting off a river barge from Bor

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Sudanese refugees

A displaced family camp under a tree providing partial shade from the midday sun

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Sudanese refugees

A boy carries a fish, caught from the nearby Nile river, in a cardboard box on his head back to his relatives to eat

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Sudanese refugees

A mother and her baby, one of the few to have a mosquito net, wake up in the morning after sleeping in the open

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Surrounded by barbed wire, people wait inside a camp for internally displaced families located inside a United Nations base in Juba

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Sudanese refugees

Ajay Galuak Akoy (10) carries water in Bor

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Hungry women eat leaves from the lalob tree in a camp for internally displaced people in Manangui. The tree (Balanites aegyptiaca) is a common "hunger food" in the region

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Sudanese refugees

Four-month old Haida Majzub was born in the Ajuong Thok refugee camp inside South Sudan. The camp, in northern Unity State, hosts thousands of refugees from the Nuba Mountains, located across the nearby border with Sudan

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A girl fills a container with muddy water in the Ajuong Thok Refugee Camp

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A girl carries water from a communal water point inside a camp for internally displaced families located inside a United Nations base in Juba

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The clashes in South Sudan began when uniformed personnel opened fire at a meeting of the governing party, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement

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Myanmar refugees

45 year old Dilbhar looks towards the camera as she stands in the Shamalapur Rohingya refugee settlement in Chittagong district. She escaped to Bangladesh from the Bodchara village in the Mondu district of Myanmar

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Myanmar refugees

32 year old Mahada Khatum, 5 year old Hasan Sharif, and 9 year old Umma Kulsum sit outside their home in the Shamalapur Rohingya refugee settlement in Chittagong district. The family escaped violence and discrimination from the Zomgara Baharchara village in the Meherulla district of Myanmar

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Myanmar refugees

Hamid and his daughter Rajama sit inside their home in the Shamalapur Rohingya refugee settlement in Chittagong district. They fled to Bangladesh from the Dhuachopara village in the Rachidhong district of Myanmar

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Afghan refugees

Afghan children wait for relief supplies from the Muslim Hands United For The Needy during an aid distribution at a refugee camp on the outskirts of Kabul

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Afghan refugees

Afghan people carry relief supplies received from the Muslim Hands United For The Needy during an aid distribution at a refugee camp on the outskirts of Kabul

But human rights groups said there was grave concern that British armaments being used in the campaign were responsible for civilian casualties, in particular at the Al Mazraq.

A spokesman for the Campaign Against Arms Trade said: “The UK has sold large numbers of fighter jets to Saudi Arabia and there is every reason to believe they have been involved in the bombing.

“The Government needs investigate if UK weapons have been used and take responsibility by announcing a full embargo on all arms sales to Saudi Arabia.”

Amnesty International said it was concerned that the ten-strong multinational force being led by Saudi Arabia was failing to take sufficient precautions to prevent civilian casualties after six people, including four children, burned to death in air strikes today.

Said Boumedouha, the group’s Middle East and North Africa director, said: “It is becoming increasingly apparent that the Saudi Arabian-led coalition is turning a blind eye to civilian deaths and suffering caused by its military intervention.”

There were differing reports of casualty figures from the Al Mazraq strike with the UN saying that at least 19 civilians died with 35 wounded, including 11 children. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said its staff had reported 40 dead and up to 200 injured.

Witnesses reported that the target of the strike may have been a truck carrying militants that was at the gates of the camp and the casualties included women and children in the vicinity.

Brigadier General Ahmed Al Asiri, a Saudi military spokesman, said: “It could have been that the fighter jets replied to fire, and we cannot confirm that it was a refugee camp.”

A Government spokesman said: ““It is for the Saudi-led Coalition to comment on the detail of military operations and we understand that they are urgently looking into this incident. The UK and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have a long history of defence cooperation, including in the provision of training to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law.”

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