Brendan O’Hara – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Brendan O’Hara on 2016-02-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of whether there have been any unintentional violations of international humanitarian law carried out by Saudi coalition forces in Yemen.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

We are aware of reports of alleged violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) by all sides to the conflict and take these very seriously. It is important that all sides conduct thorough and conclusive investigations into all incidents where it is alleged that IHL has been breached. As the Saudi Arabian authorities announced on 31 January, they have mechanisms in place to investigate alleged incidents and to learn lessons if things go wrong. The Ministry of Defence also monitors incidents of alleged IHL violations using a range of available information, which in turn informs our overall assessment of IHL compliance in Yemen. At this stage, looking at all the information available to us, we have not assessed that there has been a breach of IHL by the coalition, but we continue to monitor the situation closely, seeking further information where appropriate.