SANAA —
The UN envoy to Yemen called Wednesday for “serious engagement” to uphold the
war-torn country’s truce, which has offered a rare respite from violence.
اضافة اعلان
Hans Grundberg
spoke at the end of his first visit to the rebel-held capital, where he held
talks with Houthi rebel leaders.
The two-month
ceasefire took effect 11 days ago.
“While we see that
the truce is broadly holding, we need to be mindful of the challenges, too,”
the Swedish diplomat warned at the end of his three-day visit.
“We are relying on
the parties’ continued commitment and serious engagement in upholding the
truce.”
The renewable
ceasefire comes seven years after a Saudi-led coalition began its military
intervention in Yemen, after the Iran-backed Houthis took control of swathes of
the country including Sanaa in 2014.
Grundberg said oil
tankers had begun arriving at the port of Hodeida, one of the terms of the
truce intended to ease the “fuel crisis” in Sanaa and elsewhere.
“Intense work” is
underway for Sanaa airport’s first commercial flight in six years, another
feature of the pause in fighting, Grundberg said, while talks have started on
reopening key roads in Taiz and other governorates.
“Despite reported
violations that we are concerned about, we have seen a significant overall
reduction in hostilities and no confirmed reports of air strikes or
cross-border attacks,” Grundberg added.
In another hopeful
sign, Yemen’s president last week handed his powers to a new leadership council
tasked with holding peace talks with the rebels.
More than 150,000
people are estimated to have been directly killed and millions displaced by the
fighting, triggering what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
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