Rimbo: The UN has asked Yemen’s Ansar Allah fighters to withdraw from Hodeida as part of a ceasefire deal placing the flashpoint port city under joint control, according to a document seen by AFP on Monday.
The document, verified by sources in both the government and fighter delegations at UN-brokered talks in Sweden, stipulates that the military coalition fighting the Ansar Allah fighters would cease an offensive on the fighter-held city in exchange for Ansar Allah withdrawal.
The area would then be put under the control of a joint committee and supervised by the United Nations. The document does not propose the deployment of UN peacekeeping troops.
The government was expected to issue a formal response to the proposal “soon”, state representative Hadi Haig said.
“The special envoy’s paper is under study. The response will come soon, God willing,” Haig said on the sidelines of the talks.
Ansar Allah representative Salim al Moughaless said the fighters would only consider a withdrawal as part of a full political solution to the conflict.
“The discussion is long and ongoing,” Moughaless said.
A UN official in Rimbo was not immediately reachable for comment.
Yemen’s government and the fighters convened in the rural village of Rimbo, Sweden on Thursday for what is expected to be a week of talks on a war that has killed upwards of 10,000 people in less than four years.
The Hodeida proposal is a significant step closer to the demands of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, whose government was driven out of the capital Sanaa in a takeover in 2014 that included the seizure of Hodeida — the most valuable port in a country now on the brink of famine.
The Red Sea city has since June been at the heart of a government offensive. Its destruction would worsen the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, where the UN estimates 14 million people face starvation.
Shipments to Hodeida, including humanitarian aid, have been severely restricted by the coalition. Ansar Allah fighters are now ensconced in residential neighbourhoods to hold off government forces.
“Military operations are ongoing in different areas,” coalition spokesman Turki al Maliki told reporters in Riyadh as the Sweden talks entered their fifth day.
“The fighters have fortified their defence lines inside Hodeida city,” he said. “We are working to create safe humanitarian corridors from Hodeida to Sanaa.”
The UN has regularly urged the coalition to suspend operations in the densely-populated city, home to 600,000 people and a traditional conduit for 90 per cent of food imports to Yemen.
The government accuses the fighters of smuggling arms through Hodeida and has demanded the fighters withdraw unilaterally from the area. Both parties have said they would accept UN supervision of the port if it were under their sole
control. — AFP
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