Several UK lawmakers, including a former Conservative international development minister, slammed the government on Tuesday for cutting by more than half its humanitarian aid to Yemen, after accusing the UK of abandoning its moral obligations and warning that the decision will condemn thousands of children to starvation in the war-torn Arab country
LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd March, 2021) Several UK lawmakers, including a former Conservative international development minister, slammed the government on Tuesday for cutting by more than half its humanitarian aid to Yemen, after accusing the UK of abandoning its moral obligations and warning that the decision will condemn thousands of children to starvation in the war-torn Arab country.
"Despite all the talk of global Britain this is us abandoning our moral obligations, pulling further away from our allies and stepping back just as the USA steps up," Labour lawmaker Lisa Nandy told the House of Commons.
The shadow foreign minister voiced her concern following confirmation by Foreign Minister Dominic Raab that the UK will only provide 87 million Pounds ($121 million) in humanitarian support to Yemen, a 54 percent cut from the 214 million pounds ($298 million) pledged in 2020, forced by the economic difficulties derived from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last year, the Conservative government announced that it will reduce to 0.5 percent its previous commitment to spend 0.7 percent of the Gross Domestic Product on overseas aid.
But Conservative lawmaker Andrew Mitchell warned that the aid cut is a "strategic mistake" that will condemn thousands of Yemeni children to starvation.
"The Government have today announced the unimaginable decision to cut aid by more than half for the greatest humanitarian crisis on Earth - and in the middle of a global pandemic," Mitchell said.
After highlighting that the UK has become the only G7 country to cut humanitarian aid this year, the former international development secretary called for the government to give Parliament a vote on the decision.
"The Government should urgently put this issue to a vote in the House of Commons before they cut any more lifesaving projects which are clearly in Britain's national interest," he said.
Defending the move in Parliament, Raab insisted that the UK has given Yemen 1 billion pounds ($1.4 billion) since the conflict began seven years ago.
"Of course, these are very difficult financial circumstances. We remain, as we have done over the last five years, between the third and fifth highest donor into Yemen," the foreign secretary said.
For the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, which has repeatedly called on the government to stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia, the aid cut is "all more heinous" because this a crisis that the UK has helped to create.
"The UK bears direct responsibility for this unfolding catastrophe through its weapons supplies, and unquestioning support for the Saudi-led coalition that has destroyed so much of Yemen's infrastructure," CAAT said in a statement.
Some 130,000 people have been killed in Yemen since Houthi rebels took Sanaa, the capital, in 2014 and a Saudi Arabia-led coalition backed by the US, UK and France intervened in the conflict to restore the government of president Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.
