Local Editor
Houthi revolutionaries and pro-Hadi forces battled in Yemen's port city of Hodeida on Wednesday, breaching a ceasefire and potentially complicating a troop withdrawal agreement intended to pave the way for wider peace talks.
Hodeida port, which has been under Houthi control, is a lifeline for millions of Yemenis threatened by starvation because of the war as it is the main entry point for food imports and aid.
The Houthi withdrawal from Hodeida and two other Red Sea ports began on Saturday and was the most significant advance yet in efforts to end the four-year-old war. The United Nations said on Tuesday the ports had been handed over to a coast guard and the pullout was going to plan.
But both sides reported renewed clashes on Wednesday.
Houthi-run media said pro-Hadi militants had hit various parts of Hodeida city, including the airport, with heavy and medium weapons.
It did not say if they were Yemeni troops or members of an international military coalition led by Saudi Arabia which backs former President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi's Aden-based regime.
The coalition has forces massed on Hodeida's outskirts and under the withdrawal plan's first phase, they are supposed to eventually also draw back.
The flare-up in fighting took place a day after the Houthi movement claimed a drone attack that Saudi Arabia said had hit two of its oil pumping stations.
Lieutenant General Michael Lollesgaard, the head of the U.N. committee overseeing the withdrawal, said Hodeida on Tuesday that phase one would be completed after the parties had agreed details of the second phase.
The United Nations now has full access to the ports, which would allow its inspectors to check ships docking in the ports, he said.
But it was not clear what effect the renewed fighting might have on the process.
The ceasefire in Hodeida, agreed during peace talks in Stockholm in December, has largely held despite intermittent shelling and skirmishes, but violence continues elsewhere in the country.
The Saudi-led coalition, which receives weapons and other support from the West, intervened in Yemen in March 2015 after the Houthi movement ousted Hadi from the capital Sanaa. Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia while his resigned regime based itself in the southern port city of Aden.
The war is seen as part of a wider regional conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, many of them civilians, and aid agencies say the humanitarian crisis is the worst in the world.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team
