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Yemen’s fighters hand over key Hodeidah port

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HODEIDAH: Yemen’s Ansar Allah forces have started to redeploy from the port of the Red Sea city of Hodeidah as part of a UN-sponsored peace agreement signed in Sweden earlier this month, a UN source and a spokesman for the group said on Saturday.


Ansar Allah have agreed with the government to implement a ceasefire in Hodeidah province and withdraw their respective forces.


Retired Dutch general Patrick Cammaert, the head of a United Nations advance team charged with monitoring the ceasefire, arrived in Hodeidah this week.


Under the deal, international monitors are to be deployed in Hodeidah and a Redeployment Coordination Committee (RCC) including both sides, chaired by Cammaert, will oversee implementation. The committee started its meetings this week.


A UN source said Ansar Allah forces, which control the city and its strategic port, had started to redeploy overnight.


Hodeidah’s Ansar Allah governor, Mohammed Ayash Qaheem, said that the group’s fighters had withdrawn from the port as specified in the peace agreement, handing control to local units of Yemeni coast guards who were in charge of protecting ports before the war. These will be under UN supervision.


A Reuters camera operator saw the UN team led by Cammaert witnessing the fighters’ withdrawal.


The Ansar Allah withdrawal from the three ports of Hodeidah, Salif and Rass Issa is intended to be the first step in the implementation of the agreement, to be followed by both sides pulling their forces out of the city and the surrounding province.


Military officials from the government forces, which control some southern parts of the city of Hodeidah, said they needed time to establish if Ansar Allah forces had really withdrawn from the ports.


The government fears that the coast guards may remain loyal to the Sanaa government after the withdrawal. — Reuters


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