United Nations ceasefire in Yemen violated due to new clashes

Saudi fighter jets pounded a police station in Al-Radhma district in the southwestern Yemeni province of Ibb after the truce came into force early Saturday, Yemen’s Saba Net news agency reported.

Hadi informed the Saudi-led coalition carrying out airstrikes against the rebels that he backs a humanitarian pause in order “to ensure their support and collaboration”, Dujarric said.

Violence continued through the night in Taez, with witnesses saying the Huthis had also bombed several neighbourhoods. There were reports of minor fighting in the northern part of Aden.

Witnesses and officials said the truce was holding in the capital, Sanaa, as well as the country’s second major city, Aden, and other cities.

Yemen’s Supreme Revolutionary Committee announced in a statement on Wednesday that Sanaa will spare no efforts at avenging the casualties and destruction left behind from the Saudi airstrikes.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has received assurances from the Houthis, the General People’s Congress and other parties that “the pause will be fully respected and that there will be no violations from any combatants under their control”, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told a daily briefing.

Implementing more thorny political points, the envoy said, would not happen immediately and required more discussion, but the Houthis have released a top pro-Hadi politician in Sanaa and allowed the shipment of 50 aid trucks to the embattled southern city of Aden to buttress the truce.

“We hope that this truce will pave the way for ending the Saudi aggression”, said Mohammed Ali al-Huthi, head of the rebels’ Supreme Revolutionary Committee.

Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey, reporting from the United Nations headquarters in New York, on Friday said that aid agencies were poised to move in as soon as the ceasefire was due to start. More than 3,000 people have been killed since March, when a Saudi-led and U.S.-backed coalition began lau…

United Nations aid agencies are ready to scale up operations during the pause, although the response to an appeal for $1.6 billion has been meagre, with just 13% of that amount received so far.

Etefa said the WFP managed over the past week to deliver 9,000 tonnes of food to its warehouses in Yemen, adding that the truce is needed to secure its delivery.

Yassin urged “warring factions on the ground, particularly the Houthis and their allies, to comply with the truce and refrain from obstructing the ceasefire [efforts]”.

Washington regards that branch, known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as its most risky and has kept up a drone war despite the pullout of USA troops from Yemen in March as the country’s war worsened.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that more than 21 million people in need of humanitarian aid in Yemen – 80 per cent of the population and millions of people one step away from starvation.