Yemen

The United Arab Emirates is recklessly arming militias in Yemen with advanced weaponry supplied by the US and other states, Amnesty International alleges. Armoured vehicles, mortars and machine-guns are being diverted illegally to unaccountable groups accused of war crimes, according to a report.

Yemen’s warring sides are due to meet for fresh discussions on a prisoner exchange agreement, the UN’s Special Envoy for the war-torn country announced on Monday.

The UN Special Envoy for Yemen said on Thursday that the main negotiators for the warring sides were continuing to show the “necessary flexibility and good faith” to move forward, despite delays in implementing the agreement marking the first steps towards a lasting peace deal, brokered in Sweden last December. … Also on Thursday, Secretary-General António Guterres announced the appointment of Danish Lieutenant General Michael Anker Lollesgaard, to succeed retired Major General Patrick Cammaert, of the Netherlands, as the new head of the UN Mission in support of the ceasefire and troop withdrawal agreement for Hudaydah, known as UNMHA.

The Saudi-led coalition is prepared to use “calibrated force” to push the Iranian-aligned Houthi movement to withdraw from Yemen’s Hodeidah port city under a U.N.-sponsored deal, a senior United Arab Emirates official said on Wednesday. Yemen’s warring parties have failed to pull troops from the country’s main port under a month-old truce, reviving the threat of an all-out assault on Hodeidah that could unleash famine.

The ceasefire in Yemen’s crucial port city of Hudaydah is “generally holding” and deadlines have had to be extended, but the UN’s Special Envoy said on Monday that “more than any time in the past” the political will remains to end years of conflict that has left millions on the brink of starvation.

The top UN official overseeing a cease-fire deal in the strategic Yemeni port city of Hodeida survived a brief attack on his armored convoy on Thursday, underscoring the brittle nature of a month-old pact widely seen as central to ending Yemen’s 4-year-old war.

The Security Council unanimously voted on Wednesday in favour of deploying up to 75 observers to monitor a fragile ceasefire in Yemen's port city of Hudaydah which went into effect late last month; a lifeline for millions of Yemenis on the verge of starvation. Among other things, the newly adopted resolution establishes what will be officially known as the UN Mission to support the Hodeidah Agreement (UNMHA).

Houthi rebel and Yemeni government representatives did not meet face-to-face in the port city of Hodeidah over the past week despite a recently-inked peace plan, United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Monday. … Their refusal to sit together highlights the difficulty in implementing the UN-brokered deal, reached between the government and rebels on December 13 in Rimbo, Sweden.