Yemen’s Houthi rebels withdrawing from key Red Sea port

CAIRO — Houthi rebels in Yemen said they had started to withdraw from three strategic Red Sea ports Saturday, offering a tentative boost to faltering United Nations-led efforts to start talks on ending the four-year war in the country.

Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, the head of the rebels’ Supreme Revolutionary Committee, said they had started to pull out of Hodeida, the main conduit for humanitarian aid into Yemen, and two smaller nearby ports.

The extent of the withdrawal was unclear. U.N. officials posted to Yemen had not offered any confirmation Saturday. The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis offered no comment.

The U.N. envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, described the process as a “fragile vessel.” Many worry that its failure could plunge Yemen into a new, even more destabilizing, round of fighting.

The Houthi withdrawal revives a deal signed amid considerable fanfare in December, when both sides agreed to withdraw from Hodeida to avert a catastrophic famine in Yemen. An estimated 80 percent of Yemenis, or 24 million people, require relief aid, according to the United Nations.

But implementation of the deal, which was supposed to start in January, has been plagued by distrust and delays. Houthi officials faced accusations of breaking their promises. At times the agreement appeared to veer toward collapse.

Intensive diplomacy led by Griffiths helped rescue the deal this past week. Even so, his optimism was tempered with caution.

“We have to keep at this,” Griffiths said. “We have to make it work. There really frankly is no choice for the people of Yemen.”

Peace efforts have seen several false dawns since the war began in 2015 when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia deployed troops to oust the Iran-allied Houthi rebels who had seized the capital, Sanaa.