President pleads for flow of humanitarian aid

Yemen’s embattled and exiled president yesterday urged his government’s rival, the Iranbacked Houthi rebels, to stop impeding the flow of urgently needed humanitarian aid following a warning from the UN humanitarian chief last week that ‘‘the specter of famine’’ has returned. President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s plea came in a prerecorded speech to the UN General Assembly’s ministerial meeting. It aired more than a week after Human Rights Watch warned that all sides in Yemen’s conflict were interfering with the arrival of food, health care supplies, water and sanitation support.