Local Editor
The head of Yemen’s national delegation warned Friday that the recent escalation by the coalition in Hodeida “could blow up the Sweden agreement”.
“The [Saudi-led] coalition will the responsibilty of this escalation which is also a test to the United Nations,” Mohammad Abdulsalam said on Twitter.
Earlier in the day, the Saudi-led coalition launched a military operation against the Yemeni port city of Hodeida, violating a 2018 UN-brokered ceasefire agreement.
The coalition spokesman Colonel Turki al-Malki said the raid has destroyed four sites which were “used in assembling remote-controlled boats and sea mines” and for carrying out attacks in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
Abdulsalam also labeled “the seizure of boats [by the coalition] and preventing them from unloading their cargo on the port of Hodeida” as “an act of war and an aggression threatening the security of maritime navigation.”
A Hodeidah ceasefire and troop redeployment agreement was reched last year at peace talks in Sweden as a trust-building measure to pave the way for talks to end the war.
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the Ansarullah revolutionary movement.
The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project [ACLED], a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the war has claimed more than 91,000 lives over the past four and a half years.
The war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN says over 24 million Yemenis are in dire need of humanitarian aid, including 10 million suffering from extreme levels of hunger.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team
