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United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the warring sides in Yemen on Tuesday to reach a political settlement to end a four-year-old conflict that has left 22 million people in urgent need of aid.
The U.N. conference, which is seeking pledges towards a $3 billion funding appeal to address the world's worst humanitarian crisis, takes place a day after an air strike by the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen killed 12 civilians in the coastal city of Hodeida.
"A negotiated political settlement through inclusive intra-Yemeni dialogue is the only solution. I urge all parties to engage with my new Special Envoy, Martin Griffiths, without delay," Guterres told the one-day conference.
"All ports must remain open to humanitarian and commercial cargo, the medicines, food and the fuel needed to deliver them. Sana’a airport is also a lifeline that must be kept open," he said.
The war has killed more than 10,000 people, displaced more than 2 million and driven the country - already the poorest on the Arabian Peninsula - to the verge of famine. Hodeida is Yemen's biggest port where most of the humanitarian aid enters for millions of hungry civilians.
"It is a war that should end, so we need a ceasefire, we need peace talks, we need an end to the embargo on many of Yemen's ports," Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Reuters.
"But we also ask Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran - who are supporting opposing sides - and for that matter, the United Kingdom, the United States, who are earning enormous sums of money on arms sales to this conflict to push the parties to the table."
Senior aid officials from Britain and the United States also called for a political solution to the conflict.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team
