Amnesty International announced today, Saturday, that lawsuits and protest activities will be organized in several European ports in protest to the resumption of this week's cargo ship. The Saudi-owned ship had previously transported weapons with tens of millions of dollars used in the Yemen war.
After the Saudi cargo ship, "Nahari Yanbu", stopped on a transatlantic flight in the United States and Canada last month, it is expected that it will depart from tomorrow, Sunday, in five European ports, before continuing its journey towards Saudi Arabia.
This is related to the Premairhaven ports in Germany, Antwerp in Belgium, and Tilbury Docks in the United Kingdom, in addition to the French ports of Cherbourg and Genoa, Italy.
During a similar trip last May, protests and lawsuits prevented some of the weapons destined for Yemen from being loaded onto the ship, but despite that tens of millions of dollars worth of military aircraft and other weapons were leaked to the ship.
And will include protests against the new flight of the ship, "Bahri Yanbu", three Belgian non-governmental organizations filed a lawsuit with the aim of issuing a judicial order against the government of Belgium, which allows the transfer of weapons to Saudi Arabia.
It also includes two demonstrations by Amnesty International volunteers in the French ports of Cherbourg and Genoa, and the implementation of a strike by Italian port workers, as Italian labor unions have repeatedly expressed their opposition to exploiting the port to load goods intended for military use in Yemen.
The organization says that it does not have - given the secrecy that always surrounds the contents of the ship - clear evidence confirming that it is currently transporting weapons to Saudi Arabia, but the circumstances of the current flight and the black record of this ship raise - according to the organization - real doubts that it is actually in the process of transferring arms shipments, And that the European countries once again failed to fulfill their obligations to stop illegal arms transfers.
Patrick Wilkin, researcher on human rights and arms control, stresses that several countries have failed miserably to fulfill their international obligations to stop arms transfers for use in war crimes and serious human rights violations.
"The political will of governments to respect their legal obligations is again under test ... activists and port workers are on high alert while a ship in Yanbu tries to violate international law again in the name of lucrative arms deals that fuel the extrajudicial killing of civilians and cause a serious humanitarian catastrophe," Wilkin added. In Yemen. "
It is noteworthy that Amnesty International protested - together with its partner Spanish NGOs - last December against the arrival of another Saudi ship called "Bahri Abha" to the port of Sagunto near the Spanish city of Seville.
The Spanish government informed the organization at the time that the Saudi ship was loaded with containers bound for the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, but it refused to disclose its contents.