ARMS sales to Saudi Arabia are fuelling war crimes and prolonging a devastating six-year war on Yemen marked by deadly air strikes and shelling, United Nations investigators said today.

The UN-convened panel of independent experts called for an end to the deadly trade, which has seen Yemen bombed to the brink of the world’s worst famine in more than a century.

It also urged the UN Security Council to refer evidence of war crimes to the International Criminal Court for possible prosecutions.

It is the third successive year that the panel has found evidence of war crimes and violations of international law, having examined incidents between June 2019 and June 2020.

It found that Britain, Canada, France, Iran and the US had helped perpetuate the war through continued arms sales, despite being aware of the humanitarian crisis unfolding on the ground.

Kamel Jendoubi, the Tunisian human-rights expert who chairs the group, said: “After years of documenting the terrible toll of this war, no-one can say ‘we did not know what was happening in Yemen’.”

Australian former MP Melissa Park, who also sits on the panel, told reporters that everyone involved in the fighting bore responsibility for the devastation in Yemen.

“Responsibility for these violations rests with all the parties to the conflict — namely the government of Yemen, de facto authorities (Houthis), the Southern Transitional Council, and members of the coalition, in particular Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates,” she said.

Canada appears in the report for the first time “because there has been an up-tick in arms sales by Canada in 2019,” the panel said, reiterating its call “for states to stop transferring arms to the parties to the conflict.”

The report found evidence of air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition that had failed to protect civilians and civilian targets. Schools, weddings and infrastructure have previously been targeted in bombing raids.

“Disproportionate attacks constitute war crimes under customary international law,” the report said.

The war in Yemen started in 2015 after the Houthi movement ousted the government of president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who is currently in exile.

More than 100,000 people have been killed, with aid agencies warning that millions are on the brink of famine.

Up to 24 million people, 80 percent of the population, require humanitarian aid, according to UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres.