Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-04-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many cases of alleged international humanitarian law violations by the Saudi coalition within the Yemen conflict presented to the UK and Saudi authorities by NGOs have been investigated by the Government.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

The UK has encouraged Saudi Arabia to investigate allegations of breaches of International Humanitarian Law.

The Saudi Arabian Government announced on 29 February that they are forming an independent committee to examine military activity in civilian areas in order to minimise possible civilian casualties; assess the Coalition’s rules of engagement; assess accidents, verification and targeting procedures and advise how they can be improved; and provide a clear, full and objective report for each investigation made including conclusions, lessons learnt and recommendations for future actions.

We monitor the situation closely and we welcome any further information non-governmental organisations can provide to supplement the range of information we consider from a variety of sources.