Truce brings hope for Yemen
ACEASEFIRE yesterday halted months of heavy fighting in Yemen’s port city of Hodeida, raising hopes that the latest UN-led peace efforts can end the civil war and alleviate the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
But the truce in the Red Sea city remains fragile, and it’s unclear if the Saudi-backed government and the Iranaligned Houthi rebels can reach a wider peace agreement despite mounting international pressure to end the war.
Yemeni officials said the fighting in Hodeida subsided early Tuesday as the ceasefire took effect, with only sporadic fire from automatic weapons heard across the city.
Some 70 per cent of Yemen’s food imports and humanitarian aid enter through Hodeida, which remained open even as the Saudi-led coalition waged a months-long campaign that failed to dislodge the rebels. Aid groups feared that the port’s closure could plunge Yemen into famine.
AGREEMENT DETAILS
The truce agreement, reached last week at UN-brokered talks in Sweden, calls on both sides to withdraw from the city and its outskirts. A joint committee led by UN officers will oversee the ceasefire and the redeployment of forces. Local authorities and police will run the city and its three port facilities under UN supervision.
UN envoy Martin Griffiths has said that the committee will get to work swiftly “to translate the momentum built up in Sweden into achievements on the ground”.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that Major General Patrick Cammaert, who has convene a first meeting of the committee, which includes military and security representatives from the government and the rebels, by video conference on Wednesday.
Yemen’s four-year conflict pits the internationally recognised government, backed by a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, against Shiite rebels known as Houthis. Iran supports the rebels but denies allegations from the coalition, Western countries, and UN experts that it is arming them.