DUBAI – Amnesty International on Friday denounced Western arms sales to Saudi Arabia and its allies in a coalition battling the Houthis in Yemen, saying such traffic made a "mockery" of a global arms trade treaty.
The rights group accused both the Saudi-led coalition forces and the Iran-allied Houthis of committing potential war crimes in the three-year conflict.
More than 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen since March 2015 when Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Muslim Arab states launched a military campaign against the Houthis, a group of Shiite fighters who had seized the capital and forced President Abd Rabbu Mansour al-Hadi to flee.
"There is extensive evidence that irresponsible arms flows to the Saudi Arabia-led coalition have resulted in enormous harm to Yemeni civilians," Lynn Maalouf, Director of Research for the Middle East at Amnesty International, said in a statement.