‘Uneasy’ calm in Hodeida after overnight fire
DUBAI: The battleground Yemeni port city of Hodeida was calm yesterday after a minor exchange of fire between the warring parties overnight, a pro-government official said.
Military officials and residents have said that there has been intermittent fighting between loyalists – backed by a Saudi-led coalition – and the Iran-aligned Huthis since a truce in the lifeline Red Sea port city and its surroundings came into force on Tuesday.
A pro-government official told AFP that four loyalists were wounded on Wednesday night.
“The exchange of fire lasted for about half an hour, and there is uneasy calm this morning,” he said.
The official added there has been intermittent fighting on a number of battlefronts in Hodeida province, including the districts of Hays and alTuhayta.
The pro-government forces and the Huthi rebels exchanged accusations yesterday that the other side was violating the ceasefire agreement reached at talks in Sweden earlier this month.
UN observers are due in Yemen to head up monitoring teams made up of government and rebel representatives tasked with overseeing the implementation of the UN-brokered ceasefire, under the auspices of a Redeployment Coordination Committee.
The UN chair of that committee, Patrick Cammaert, convened its first meeting by videoconference from New York on Wednesday “to discuss the general outlines of its work, including agreement of a code of conduct”, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
UN chief Antonio Guterres was ‘breathing down the neck’ of officials to make sure the UN observers are deployed as soon as possible, Dujarric said.
He added that Cammaert will head to Jordan’s capital Amman, from where he will travel to the Yemeni capital Sanaa and Hodeida.
Brigadier Ahmed AlKokbani, a Yemeni government representative on the committee, told AFP that the observers’ meeting with Cammaert covered the bases of the committee’s work.