Sir, – Your newspaper's report on the Saudi-led coalition's airstrike on the wedding party in Yemen makes for harrowing reading ("Wedding hit by Saudi coalition air strike in Yemen", World News, April 25th). Over 21 people were killed, including the bride. Most of those killed were women and children, while dozens more were critically wounded, many of them children.
All this by bombs most likely supplied to Saudi Arabia by Britain, France, the US and other western countries.
The US government alone signed an arms deal worth $110 billion with Saudi Arabia last year that included $7 billion worth of so-called “precision weapons” – perhaps of the precision type used to kill or permanently maim the men, women and children in your report of this latest Saudi-led atrocity.
The indiscriminate bombing by the western backed Saudi-led coalition in Yemen for the last three years has hit schools, busy markets, hospitals and weddings.
Save the Children estimates that at least 50,000 children died in Yemen last year – that’s an average of 130 per day.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced, while millions are on the brink of famine.
It is time to stop this horrific suffering of civilians in yet another proxy war in the military playground of the Middle East.
Western governments could start by ceasing all arms sales to the vicious dictatorship in Saudi Arabia and by expelling a few diplomats. – Yours, etc,
JIM ROCHE,
Irish Anti-War Movement,
PO Box 9260,
Dublin 1.