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U.N.-led truce monitoring team including members of Yemen's warring sides held its first meeting in the flashpoint city of Hodeida on Wednesday, a pro-regime official said.
The official, who requested anonymity, told AFP: "We are expecting a good outcome."
Loyalist members of the committee were transported to the meeting from east of the city in U.N. vehicles, a Yemeni ex-regime official told AFP on condition anonymity.
The ceasefire in the city, whose Red Sea port is vital for millions at risk of starvation, is part of a peace push seen as the best chance yet of ending four years of devastating conflict.
Sporadic clashes on Wednesday morning underscored the fragility of the truce that began last week, as both sides accused each other of violating the ceasefire.
Retired Dutch general Patrick Cammaert is heading a joint committee including ex-regime officials and Houthi revolutionaries to oversee the truce, and will chair its first face-to-face meeting on Wednesday, according to the UN.
The meeting "is taking place as planned with all members attending", a U.N. official who did not want to be named told AFP, without disclosing the exact location.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric has described the meeting as "one of the priorities" of Cammaert's mission.
A truce in Hodeida and its surroundings went into effect on December 18 but has remained shaky, with the two sides accusing each other of violations.
Forces loyal to the resigned Hadi regime -- backed by a Saudi-led coalition -- and the Houthis exchanged gunfire for a few hours on Wednesday morning, an AFP correspondent reported.
The sound of heavy artillery could be heard to the east of the city.
An official for the Saudi-led coalition said Tuesday that 10 pro-Hadi troops had been killed since the ceasefire went into force.
The Houthis said on the same day that they had recorded at least 31 violations in the past 24 hours by pro-Hadi troops, according to Al-Masirah TV.
The war between the Houthi revolutionaries and troops loyal to former President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi escalated in 2015, when he fled into Saudi exile and the Saudi-led military coalition intervened.
Since then, the war has killed some 10,000 people, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), although human rights groups say the real death toll could be five times as high.
The conflict has unleashed a major humanitarian crisis and pushed 14 million Yemenis to the brink of famine.
Cammaert arrived in Hodeida on Sunday from the capital Sana’a, after meeting with ex-regime officials in their de-facto capital Aden.
Yemen's warring sides agreed at peace talks in Sweden this month on the ceasefire to halt a devastating offensive by Hadi forces and the coalition against Hodeida.
The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a resolution authorizing the deployment of observers to oversee the truce.
The U.N. monitoring team aims to secure the functioning of Hodeida's port and supervise the withdrawal of fighters from the city.
The text approved by the Security Council "insists on the full respect by all parties of the ceasefire agreed" for Hodeida.
It authorizes the United Nations to "establish and deploy, for an initial period of 30 days from the adoption of this resolution, an advance team to begin monitoring" the ceasefire, under Cammaert's leadership.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team
