Yemen

The U.N. envoy for Yemen warned that the risk of a return to fighting “is real,” urging warring parties to accept a longer extension of the current ceasefire due to expire next month.

The UN Security Council has urged warring parties in Yemen to urgently intensify negotiations towards expanding their historic truce, according to a statement issued on Monday. 

Twenty-one separatist fighters and six members of Al-Qaeda’s Yemen branch were killed Tuesday, government and security sources said, as an attack by the jihadists punctured months of relative peace in the war-torn country.

Yemeni rebel fighters paraded through Hodeida Thursday drawing a stern reminder from the United Nations to abide by a hard-won 2018 agreement to demilitarize the Red Sea port city.

A Yemeni government military committee said it is halting talks with the Houthi rebel group in Amman “until further notice” after an attack killed 10 members of its forces and injured seven others in Taez early on Monday.

The head of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) Rashad al-Alimi has ordered United Arab Emirates-backed separatists to stop military operations in the country’s south.

The Security Council has a joint responsibility to help Yemen take the “necessary and decisive steps towards peace,” the country’s UN Special Envoy told the ambassadors on Monday. While continuing to count on international support to implement, extend, and expand the current truce, Hans Grundberg underscored the “need to end the conflict, not merely manage it”.

The landmark truce in Yemen, which has been holding since April, has been renewed for an additional two months through 2 October, UN Special Envoy for the country, Hans Grundberg, announced on Tuesday. The extension includes a commitment by the Government and Houthi rebels to intensify negotiations to reach an expanded agreement as soon as possible.

The historic UN-brokered truce in Yemen has largely held for nearly four months, and Special Envoy Hans Grundberg on Thursday urged the Government and Houthi rebels to work towards renewing the “transformational” agreement, which expires on 2 August. 

[…] Unanimously adopting resolution 2643 (2022) (to be issued as document S/RES/2643(2022)), the Council further decided that the Mission will oversee the governate-wide ceasefire, redeployment of forces and mine action operations, and monitor ceasefire compliance in the Red Sea ports of Hudaydah, Salif and Ras Issa.