Clashes erupted yesterday morning in Yemen just minutes after a ceasefire deal took effect in the country’s Red Sea port of Hodeida, a pro-government official said.
The official told reporters that sporadic clashes in the east of the city were ongoing despite a truce deal that was to be implemented at midnight local time.
The UN on Monday said the deal was to be implemented at midnight, even though the agreement reached in Sweden was announced on Thursday between Yemen’s Saudi Arabian-backed government and the Houthi rebels, and included an “immediate ceasefire” in Hodeida and its surroundings.
Photo: ARAB 24 / via Reuters TV
Shortly before the agreement was to take effect on Monday, Yemen’s internationally recognized government called on its forces, according to a government statement, to “cease fire in Hodeida province and Hodeida city.”
The Houthi rebels also said they would commit to the agreement.
Under the agreement, a joint committee led by UN officers is to oversee the ceasefire and the redeployment of the warring parties’ forces out of Hodeida, which is currently controlled by the Houthis. Local authorities and police are to run the city and its three ports under UN supervision, and the two sides are barred from bringing in reinforcements.
A cessation of hostilities in Hodeida would spare Yemen a significant spike in civilian casualties since the rebels have shown battlefield resilience as much larger government-allied forces tried for months to retake the city. The two sides fought to a stalemate after weeks of ruinous street-to-street fighting in densely populated districts on the city’s outskirts.
Yemen’s civil war, in which a Saudi Arabian-led coalition is fighting on the government’s side against the rebels, has pushed much of the country to the brink of famine.
UN officials have said that 22 million of its 29 million people are in need of aid.
An international group tracking Yemen’s civil war last week reported that the conflict has killed more than 60,000 people, both combatants and civilians, since 2016. That figure is much higher than the UN figure of 10,000 civilian deaths and has added to the urgency to find a political resolution for the four-year bloodletting.
Additional reporting by AP
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