UN ENVOY IN YEMEN PEACE PUSH AS HUMANITARIAN CRISIS DEEPENS
Martin Griffiths to meets both sides of war and will try to persuade Iran-backed Houthis to travel to Sweden
The UN envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, arrived in Sanaa yesterday to lay the groundwork for peace talks in Sweden as aid organisations warned that renewed fighting in the main port city is threatening hospitals and exacerbating famine.
“Mr Griffiths is scheduled to meet the two sides,” a source told The National. “He will meet the Iranian-backed Houthi militias in an attempt to persuade them to begin negotiations in Sweden by next month.
After three years of fighting between Houthi rebels and pro-government forces backed by the Arab Coalition, eight million Yemenis are affected by severe food shortages. UN officials say that 14 million people, or half the population, are at risk of famine.
Almost 85,000 children under the age of five have died from acute malnutrition since the start of the conflict, Save the Children said yesterday.
Attention is now on the crucial port city of Hodeidah – a lifeline for two thirds of Yemen’s population. The Arab coalition says retaking the port is critical to bringing an end to the war and preventing a humanitarian catastrophe.
Fighting has resumed in the area, despite a push by Mr Griffiths to get warring parties to the negotiation table.
Medecins Sans Frontieres yesterday warned that medical centres were threatened by, fighting in Hodeidah. It said heavy fighting and shelling is getting very close to Al Salakhana hospital, one of the only three open and operational public hospitals in the area.
“Our staff can hear explosions and shootings occurring extremely close by every day around Al Salakhana hospital,” says Caroline Seguin, the charity’s operations manager for Yemen.
The envoy is hoping to broker a lasting truce in Hodeidah, before peace talks in Sweden next month. The last talks attempted in Geneva in September failed after the Houthi delegation refused to attend.
Hamzah Al Kamaly, Yemen’s deputy minister of youth, said that Mr Griffiths said he would escort Houthi rebels to Sweden.
“We are still waiting for a confirmation from the UN envoy and anything is possible this time around,” Mr Al Kamaly said.
Yemen’s government announced that it would take part in the proposed peace talks in Sweden next month, hours after Mohammed Al Houthi, head of the rebels Higher Revolutionary Committee, said he wanted his group to suspend all military operations and stop firing missiles at Saudi Arabia.
Khalid Al Yamani, Yemen’s Foreign Minister, said the government had informed the UN envoy that it would send a government delegation to the talks with “the aim of reaching a political solution”.
Speaking to the Security Council on Friday, Mr Griffiths said that he received “firm assurances” that the warring parties would attend talks in Sweden.
In New York, the UK presented a draft UN Security Council resolution on Yemen this week.
“The conflict in Yemen can only be resolved through an inclusive political process,” the draft resolution said.
Circulated by Britain to the 14 other council members, it sets a two-week deadline for the two parties to remove all barriers to humanitarian aid, to halt attacks on civilian areas and allow unhindered access to Hodeidah.
The draft also pushed for a large injection of foreign cash to support Yemen’s collapsing currency and for salaries of civil servants, teachers and health workers to be paid within a month.
The conflict began with the 2014 takeover of Sanaa by the Houthi rebels, who toppled the government of President Abdrabu Mansur Hadi.
The Saudi-led coalition allied with the government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015.
Yemen is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, where 8.3 million people are dependent on food aid, according to the UN. Aid groups blame the Houthis for deteriorating humanitarian conditions in the country.
They say not enough food is entering the country through Hodeidah.
Meanwhile, the head of the UN World Food Programme said this week that Houthi rebels were endangering humanitarian operations elsewhere in the country.
David Beasley accused the rebels of placing seven landmines inside grain bins in one of WFP’s grain silos in Hodeidah. “This has got to stop.”
The deputy governor of Hodeidah province, Waleed Al Qudaimi said that the Houthi militia was planting landmines and threatening food warehouses to put pressure on relief organisations to provide food for the fighters.
The International Crisis Group, a conflict monitoring NGO, released a report yesterday saying a diplomatic solution to the conflict is the only way to prevent famine.