Celebrities and charities team up for new film demanding of UK, US and French governments

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="no" equal_height_columns="no" menu_anchor="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" id="" background_color="" background_image="" background_position="center center" background_repeat="no-repeat" fade="no" background_parallax="none" enable_mobile="no" parallax_speed="0.3" video_mp4="" video_webm="" video_ogv="" video_url="" video_aspect_ratio="16:9" video_loop="yes" video_mute="yes" video_preview_image="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" margin_top="" margin_bottom="" padding_top="" padding_right="" padding_bottom="" padding_left=""][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" layout="1_1" spacing="" center_content="no" hover_type="none" link="" min_height="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" id="" background_color="" background_image="" background_position="left top" background_repeat="no-repeat" border_size="0" border_color="" border_style="solid" border_position="all" padding_top="" padding_right="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" margin_top="" margin_bottom="" animation_type="" animation_direction="left" animation_speed="0.3" animation_offset="" last="no"][fusion_text columns="" column_min_width="" column_spacing="" rule_style="default" rule_size="" rule_color="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" id=""]

“STOP FUELLING THE WAR IN YEMEN”

Nov 6,2019

An array of UK and French celebrities, including actor Charles Dance, singer-songwriter Annie Lennox, legendary French actress Catherine Deneuve and French World Cup footballer Vikash Dhorasoo, feature in a new charity film calling on the governments of the UK, France and US to stop fuelling the war in Yemen through arms sales.

The film “Their Story, Our Duty” – inspired by the documentary “Yemen: kids and the war” by award-winning Yemeni filmmaker Khadija Al-Salami – tells the harrowing true story of 4-year-old Alanoud, whose parents, two brothers and uncle were killed in a brutal air raid on a village near Sana’a, Yemen in 2017. The film is backed by global charities including Oxfam, Médecins du Monde and War Child, which have been campaigning for years to protect civilian lives in Yemen.

Attacks, like the one described in the film, that kill and wound civilians, have been carried out by all parties to the war in Yemen, killing over 12,000 civilians over four years of warfare, according to ACLED. While airstrikes by the military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are responsible for 67% of civilian casualties since 2015, all sides of this war are responsible for grave human rights and international humanitarian law violations and civilian casualties. Yet, despite repeated evidence that UK- and US-made munitions have been used in these unlawful attacks, the governments of the UK, US and France, among others, continue to allow weapons to be sold to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Actor Charles Dance: “I defy anyone to hear the words of young Alanoud in this film and feel comfortable that goods made in their country are being used to commit such horrors. And though we only tell Alanoud’s story, the heart-breaking truth is that we could have told a thousand more just like hers.

“Whatever else is going on in British politics right now, we cannot in good conscience let it deflect from our duty to prevent little children like Alanoud from having their lives literally blown apart by British manufacturing”.

Actor Catherine Deneuve: “What I find revolting is that so little is said about Yemen. Everybody should be shocked by stories such as Alanoud’s. Yet, it seems we are all looking the other way and this tragic war has been allowed to fester for over four years.”

The full list of charities backing the film are: Action Against Hunger, Avaaz, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Médecins du Monde, Mwatana for Human Rights, Oxfam, Saferworld, War Child.

About the war in Yemen

• The war in Yemen began in 2014 and severely escalated in 2015. Forces loyal to President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, backed by an international coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), are fighting the group Ansar Allah (commonly known as the Houthis). In recent months, the situation has seen increased fragmentation, and in August troops forces loyal to the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) took control of the capital city of Aden from troops loyal to the internationally recognised government.
• The war has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with an estimated 24 million living in need of humanitarian assistance.
• Around 233,000 people are projected to have been killed as a result of the conflict, either directly by fighting (102,000) and indirectly through lack of access to food, health services, and infrastructure. (Source: United Nations Development Programme, 2019).

About the sale of arms used in Yemen

• There is repeated documentation of the Saudi-led coalition using munitions made in the US, UK and elsewhere in unlawful airstrikes killing civilians. (Source: Mwatana for Human Rights)
• Several arms-producing countries, from Europe and North America, have already announced measures to suspend or limit arms sales to Saudi Arabia. (Source: Amnesty International)
• As of the end of 2018, the US, UK and France – all permanent members of the UN Security Council – were the biggest exporters of arms to Saudi Arabia. (Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI))
• United Kingdom: In June 2019, the UK Court of Appeal ruled that the UK government had acted unlawfully in licensing the sale of UK arms that might be used by Saudi Arabia to commit violations of international humanitarian law in Yemen. The court ordered the government to stop issuing new arms export licences to Saudi Arabia and retake all decisions on extant licenses. However, the government has twice broken the conditions of the court ruling by granting new licences, and is appealing against the court’s decision in order to carry on selling arms to Saudi Arabia.
• USA: President Donald Trump vetoed Congressional efforts to limit or prohibit sales on three separate occasions (three of the five vetoes that he has used as President to-date). Congress is continuing to put pressure on the Trump administration through several pieces of bipartisan legislation, including amendments in the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act, which is expected to be voted on in December.
• France: France has taken no measures to limit arms sales to the Saudi Arabia-led coalition at all, despite the high risk that French-made weapons have also been used to commit human rights violations in Yemen.

[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]