Arms worth hundreds of millions of rands continue to flow to the United Arab Emirates, while South African companies are helping Saudi Arabia to build its own weapons manufacturing sector.

South Africa has approved arms exports worth about R9.2-billion to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) since 2015, when the two countries began their military invasion of Yemen alongside seven other nations.

This is according to combined annual reports from the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC), which South African companies need to go through to get a permit to export weapons and other military products.

Yemen has been in turmoil since late in 2014, when militants overthrew the government. In response, a coalition of countries led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE launched a scorched-earth military campaign in support of the ousted president, bombing civilians, hospitals and schools. They also blockaded enemy-held areas, causing mass starvation and disease outbreaks.

And though a shaky informal truce has calmed some of the fighting since last year, Yemen has been left to suffer one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

A report by the NGO Open Secrets argues that South Africa contributed to this. For instance, in August 2018, armed forces attacked a fish market in the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah and then fired on the hospital and first responders treating the victims, killing scores of civilians....