Rights experts have urged prime minister Andy Burnham to reverse a decision to refuel Saudi Arabian warplanes as they bomb Yemen.

An open letter to Burnham and foreign secretary Ed Miliband said the UK risks being “complicit in further war crimes” after the government announced last week it would support the Saudi dictatorship’s latest attacks.

The letter is signed by NGOs including Shadow World Investigations UK and Campaign Against Arms Trade, as well as eleven human rights and international relations experts.

It notes the Saudi-led coalition, which the UK first joined in 2015, “stands credibly accused of using starvation as a war tactic” against Yemen and of “widespread attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure.”

The UN estimates 377,000 were killed in the war on Yemen – which involved 25,000 Saudi-led air raids – between 2015 and 2022, when a ceasefire was announced.

The new Saudi bombing campaign began after the Houthis seized large areas of land along the Red Sea coast, giving them more leverage over a crucial global shipping route.

Recent escalation by the Houthis, the letter argues, has been driven by Israel’s UK-backed genocide in Gaza – which saw the Houthis enforce a naval blockade against Israel from 2023 – as well as the illegal US-Israeli war on Iran, a key Houthi ally.

The latest bombings, like previous attacks, are unlikely to “weaken or dislodge the Houthis”, the letter adds. “There is a real risk that further UK military support for Saudi Arabia will not achieve the desired outcome and could make the UK complicit in further war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law,” it says.

Earlier this week, ten union leaders wrote to Burnham urging him to end military collaboration with Saudi Arabia and UK support for the war on Iran.

“Britain should not collaborate with a military that has repeatedly violated international law and has been central to creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises in Yemen,” said the letter, signed by Unison general secretary Andrea Egan and the National Education Union’s Daniel Kebede, among others.

“Providing military support to Saudi Arabia inflames the war started by the US and Israel against Iran in February, which has expanded across the region,” it added. “The more this war expands, the more expensive our bills will get. The only way out is a diplomatic settlement to the regional war.”

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