UN uses monitors from rival Yemeni sides to strengthen Hodeidah truce
▶ Teams comprising soldiers from opposing factions will be stationed in conflict zones across port city
The UN committee overseeing the ceasefire in the Yemeni city of Hodeidah has begun using monitors from both sides to strengthen the truce.
The monitors were stationed on the outskirts of the port city on Saturday by the UN Redeployment Co-ordination Committee.
The move came after a meeting that brought together the two warring sides at the border of their lines of control in the city, and the new leader of the UN observer mission monitoring the ceasefire, Lt Gen Abhijit Guha.
“The meeting succeeded in setting up the first monitoring point in the July 7 neighbourhood of Hodeidah,” said Col Wathah Al Dubaish, spokesman for the joint forces in Hodeidah.
He said that the monitoring point was made up of an officer from the joint forces and another from the rebels.
“The two officers will work collaboratively with the UN monitors who are on a UN ship in the national waters to strengthen the ceasefire, through preventing infiltrations and stopping any attempts for trenching, and to report any reinforcements push from both parties,” the colonel said.
The monitors are expected to be stationed at four points on the eastern and southern outskirts of the city for the first phase of the initiative.
If this takes place successfully, then the second stage will be carried out, Col Al Dubaish said.
That will entail monitors being stationed in the southern Hodeidah districts of Al Duraihimi, Haiys and Al Tuhaiyta.
“After deploying monitors from the two warring parties all over the [conflict] zones in and around the city and in the southern districts, the UN monitors will then take part in the monitoring process,” Col Al Dubaish said.
“They will join the local monitors on the ground to lead the new phase of the ceasefire.”
He also said that the head of the government team in the RCC told Gen Guha that this was the last chance for Houthi rebels to engage seriously in the withdrawal process.
Col Al Dubaish said the joint forces would no longer allow the Houthis to obstruct the implementation of the ceasefire deal struck in Sweden in December 2018.
Separately, the World Food Programme in Yemen last week succeeded in transferring aid supplies, including medicine, to more than 19 families detained in a rebel-held pocket in Al Duraihimi in eastern Hodeidah.
Six lorries arrived in the area where the families have been used as human shields by the Houthis since August last year, when the joint forces liberated 90 per cent of the city.
However, they could not launch the last push to take over the entire city because the rebels refused to surrender and took the families hostage.
Ali Ridha Kirshi, the deputy WFP representative in Yemen who led the relief convoy to Al Duraihimi, praised the joint forces for working hard to pave the way for the aid to reach the detained civilians.