Houthi rebels put Hodeidah ceasefire at risk by digging trenches in port city

Yemeni government forces say Houthi rebels are digging defensive trenches in Hodeidah, a move that threatens recent progress towards carrying out a UN-brokered ceasefire and troop withdrawal in the city.

The UN-led Redeployment and Co-ordination Committee charged with enforcing the ceasefire set up joint monitoring posts on the eastern and southern outskirts of Hodeidah last month.

The UN special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, welcomed the move as “remarkable and tangible progress” towards carrying out the terms of a ceasefire deal agreed in Sweden last December.

But the rebels have begun to fortify their positions by digging 19 trenches in areas under their control in the city centre, a spokesman for the government’s Joint Forces in Hodeidah told The National.

“The new channels were dug a few days after the UN put the local monitors in place to observe any new violations,” Col Wathah Al Dubaish said.

Houthi trenches have been dug around the Hodeidah University Faculty of Engineering, Al Khameri roundabout and the Thabet Brothers compound, he said.

“Such escalation poses a serious threat to the progress made by the UN to strengthen the ceasefire,” he said.

He said a letter was sent to Mr Griffiths to inform him of the trenches, but there was no response.

“We reported the Houthi escalation to the UN committee but they told us that the chair of the RCC, General Abhijit Guha, is on a visit to Sanaa,” Col Al Dubaish said.

“We then sent a letter to Martin Griffiths who didn’t respond at all. Meanwhile the rebels continue digging the channels before the eyes of the local monitors.

“We are waiting for the UN committee to send its monitors to investigate the Houthi breach, otherwise the monitoring posts recently set up by the UN will be cancelled.“

Col Al Dubaish said Yemen would also raise the issue through its mission at the UN.

Meanwhile, Houthi shelling killed a boy, six, in the southern province of Dhalea, another front in Yemen’s civil war that began in late 2014.

The boy was playing outside Al Mashareeh when a tank shell landed near his home on Sunday, a spokesman for the Southern Forces fighting the rebels in Dhalea said.

Fuad Jubari told The National the attack in the Hajer area of northern Dhalea was part of a wider rebel offensive targeting residents of villages near the border with rebel-held Ibb province.

He said the Houthis were forcibly displacing dozens of families in the area to use their homes as fortifications.

On Monday, a Houthi land mine injured five women in Al Kafala village in Hajer as people returned to their homes after government forces cleared rebels the area, he said.