Mahra was just thirty-one years old when she was forced to seek refuge in a camp. A mother of four, and expecting a fifth, Mahra was one of 4.5 million people in Yemen displaced by the Saudi-led war, and one of 21 million people in need of urgent humanitarian aid. Conflict had compounded an already dire famine in a country ravaged by drought, causing widespread malnutrition.

One day, while fetching water, Mahra collapsed. With the help of United Nations–funded health care, Mahra survived. Her unborn child did not.

On Tuesday, MP after MP stood up in Parliament to defend the prime minister’s enormous annual increase in “defense spending.” Did any of them stop for a moment to think about what this actually means? Since 2015, more than half of Saudi Arabia’s combat aircraft used for the bombing raids were supplied by the UK. Over that period, British arms companies earned more than £6 billion in sales. Even before Britain started bombing Yemen directly in 2024, it was providing the weapons for a campaign that killed more than 150,000 people from military action and left hundreds of thousands more dead from disease and famine. This is the reality of “defense spending.”