A UN-proposed humanitarian truce in Yemen got off to a shaky start yesterday after Saudi-led coalition aircraft struck rebel positions and clashes persisted between insurgents and pro-government fighters.
The truce was intended to last a week, allowing aid to reach an estimated 21.1 million people in need, who have endured more than three months of bombing and civil war.
Air raids pounded Houthi and Yemeni military units in the capital, Sana’a, and the southern cities of Taiz and Aden, where residents also reported intense artillery exchanges between pro-government fighters and local militias.
Photo: AFP
In Aden, witnesses said Houthi forces fired mortars and Russian-made rockets toward opposition fighters based in northern areas and near the city’s airport.
“Our security and armed forces maintain their right to fight and hunt down al-Qaeda and Islamic State elements as part of our just defense of our people,” Yemeni Army spokesman Colonel Sharaf Luqman said in a statement yesterday.
The six-day ceasefire came into effect just before midnight on Friday, as aid agencies scrambled to rush desperately needed relief supplies to millions threatened by famine.
The leader of the Houthi rebels said he did not expect the truce to hold, while the Saudi-led coalition has not committed to the plan to cease hostilities.
One Saudi official described the measure as “useless,” questioning whether the rebel fighters he said were backed by Iran would stick to it.
The six-day pause to allow aid delivery was declared after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon received assurances from Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi and the Houthis that the move would be respected.
“We do not have much hope for the truce to succeed,” Yemeni Shiite leader Sheik Sayyid Abdul-Malik al-Houthi said in a televised statement aired ahead of the truce deadline. “The success of the truce depends on the commitment of the Saudi regime and is conditioned to a complete end to the aggression.”
UN World Food Program spokeswoman Abeer Etefa said the truce was “our final hope” for reaching areas needing aid.
Two ships with food and fuel were waiting off the port of Aden to dock, she added.
The truce comes more than a week after the UN declared Yemen a level-3 humanitarian emergency, the highest on its scale, with nearly half the nation facing a food crisis.
“It is imperative and urgent that humanitarian aid can reach all vulnerable people of Yemen unimpeded and through an unconditional humanitarian pause,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
UN aid agencies said they are ready to scale up operations during the pause, although the response to an appeal for US$1.6 billion has been meager, with just 13 percent of that amount received so far.
More than 21.1 million people — more than 80 percent of Yemen’s population — need aid, with 13 million facing food shortages, the UN said.
The conflict has killed more than 3,200 people, about half of them civilians, since March, it added.
Etefa said the agency delivered 9,000 tonnes of food to its warehouses in Yemen over the past week, adding the truce was needed to secure its mission.
Almost 40 trucks in two convoys to Aden and Saada had yet to reach their destinations because of damaged roads and security problems, she said.
“We hope to see an effective respect for the ceasefire and to allow us to reach all parts of Yemen, regardless of who controls them,” she added.
The UN Children’s Fund said it was stepping up nutrition screening, vaccinations and other-saving interventions for millions of children, with teams having to “brave extremely hazardous conditions.”
Additional reporting by Reuters
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