Several European countries including the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, have temporarily halted arms exports to Turkey over the country’s military incursion into northern Syria.
The operation, which has been ongoing for almost a week, has so far resulted in hundreds of deaths among Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
But this reaction from EU countries has also directed a spotlight to the bloc’s other arms trading partners — most notably Saudi Arabia, which is involved in a controversial war in Yemen.
A Saudi-led coalition has been fighting against rebels in Yemen since 2015 in a conflict that has led to the confirmed deaths or injuries of nearly 18,000 people, with the actual number believed to be higher.
Around 24.1 million people in the country are also in need of some kind of humanitarian or protection assistance, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a 2018 report, calling it the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
But despite these figures — and with the war edging close to its sixth year — many EU countries have had a somewhat delayed response when it comes to arms deals with the Saudis, while some haven’t really responded at all.