A UN-brokered ceasefire was mostly holding across war-torn Yemen yesterday except in the besieged city of Taiz where shelling killed at least one person and wounded five, according to residents.
There were also sporadic exchanges of gunfire in other parts of the country after the truce between the Saudi-led coalition, which backs Yemen’s internationally recognized government, and the Shiite rebels known as Houthis went into effect at midnight on Sunday.
The truce is meant to build confidence between Yemen’s warring sides ahead of the UN-sponsored peace talks scheduled to take place in Kuwait on Monday next week.
Photo: AFP
Residents of Taiz — which has been besieged by the rebels for more than a year — are blaming the Houthis for the overnight random shelling that killed one civilian and wounded four.
In Sana’a, which has been under the Houthis’ control since September 2014, the coalition largely halted its airstrikes. However, in the district of Naham, on the fringes of Sana’a Province, fighting continued overnight between armed men backing the government and the Houthis, according to residents there. Residents in both Taiz and Naham spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing for their safety.
The Saudi-led coalition has said it would commit to the open-ended ceasefire and halt its year-long air campaign against the rebels.
Alliance spokesman Saudi Brigadier General Ahmed al-Asiri told reporters that the coalition’s commitment to the truce would depend on the extent that the Iranian-backed Houthis abide by the UN Security Council’s resolution stipulating that the rebels pull their forces from the cities and hand over heavy weapons to the government.
UN special envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed urged all parties to work to ensure that the cessation of hostilities is “fully respected.”
“This is critical, urgent and much needed. Yemen cannot afford the loss of more lives,” Ould Cheikh Ahmed said in a statement yesterday, adding that preparations are underway for the Kuwait peace talks, which are to focus on key issues such as withdrawal of militias and armed groups, handover of heavy weapons and resumption of an all-inclusive political dialogue.
The coalition, comprised of mostly Arab countries, launched its campaign against the Houthis in March last year, several months after the rebels overran Sana’a and forced the internationally backed government into exile. Since then, more than 9,000 people have been killed in Yemen’s civil war, including more than 3,000 civilians, according to the UN.
The fighting has also displaced 2.4 million people. One of the most daunting consequences of the war has been the spread of hunger across Yemen. The impoverished nation of 26 million, which imports 90 percent of its food, already had one of the highest malnutrition rates in the world, but in the past year the statistics have surged.
The number of people considered “severely food insecure” — unable to put food on the table without outside aid — jumped from 4.3 million to more than 7 million, according to the World Food Program. Ten of the country’s 22 provinces are classified as one step away from famine.
The UN children’s agency said that the children of Yemen are bearing the brunt of the conflict. UNICEF said in a statement that at least 900 children have been killed — a seven-fold increase, compared to the number of fatalities among children in 2014. The agency also said that child recruitment increased five times, and that the “disruption in the delivery of basic services has deprived thousands of children of their fundamental rights to education and health.”
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