Exclusive: anti-genocide activists block Welsh RAF base

On 17 April 2026, anti-genocide activists blocked the main gate entrance to RAF Valley on the island of Ynys Môn — Anglesey in English — in North Wales for more than four hours to slow down the British government’s war machine in Wales.

The base is used, under a programme known as Affinity FTS, to train British military personnel to fly warplanes. Affinity FTS is operated jointly by Israeli arms firm Elbit and US arms firm KBR, at 3 bases across Wales and England. These are RAF Barkston Heath, RAF Cranwell and, on Ynys Môn, RAF Valley. The programme has been running for years. Elbit CEO Martin Fausset has spoken of his pride in training RAF personnel.

The ‘KSP Solidarity’ shut down the base’s main gate for 4+ hours to oppose the normalisation of that relationship between the RAF, Elbit Systems and KBR. The campaign is not new, nor a transplant. Locals in the area have been campaigning for decades at the Valley base and across Wales against the training of RAF — and Saudi — pilots.

KSP Solidarity says that pilots trained through the have bombed lifesaving infrastructure such as food convoys and desalination plants in Yemen — during one of the worst humanitarian crises on record. The UK made billions helping the Saudi regime create the crisis. A KSP spokesperson told Skwawkbox:

Protestors have historically opposed this base also for its continued reminder of English colonialism. In 1936, 3 Plaid Cymru members set fire to part of the RAF facilities in protest of the wartime rearmament.

One of the protestors added:

We say NO MORE to Elbit and KBR on Welsh soil! We say NO MORE to RAF Valley! We cannot sit idly by as our government, our military, indoctrinates our neighbours to commit genocide across the globe.

KSP Solidarity is a grassroots collective acting in solidarity with Kashmir, Sudan and Palestine.

Featured image via the Canary