UN envoy in Yemen to push for peace talks as famine stalks
Under heavy Western pressure, the government and its Saudi-led military backers have largely suspended a five-month-old offensive on the Red Sea port city as UN envoy Martin Griffiths makes the biggest peace push in two years.
But Hodeida residents reported clashes just hours ahead of Griffiths' arrival and a devastating all-out assault still threatens as the coalition eyes a key victory in its war with Iran-backed Huthi rebels.
UN agencies say up to 14 million Yemenis are at risk of starvation if Hodeida port is closed by fighting or damage.
The city is virtually the sole gateway to the capital and rebel-held territory, and some 80 percent of commercial food imports and virtually all UN-supervised humanitarian aid pass through its docks.
Griffiths -- who has said he wants Yemen's rivals to meet within weeks in Sweden -- did not comment to reporters on his arrival at Sanaa airport.
He was expected to hold talks with rebel political leaders as he attempts to revive a peace process that collapsed in acrimony in Switzerland in September when the rebels failed to show up.
The Huthis have said repeatedly that they need stronger security guarantees from the international community that they will be given safe passage through the crippling air and sea blockade the coalition has enforced since March 2015.
- 'Sternest test' -
The international community is demanding in return that the rebels halt all offensive operations, particularly missile attacks on neighbouring Saudi Arabia, and commit to joining talks on handing over of the port of Hodeida to UN control.
"Griffiths faces the sternest test of his young tenure," said Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group.
"If his mediation efforts succeed in preventing a destructive battle for Hodeida, he could build momentum toward reviving a peace process."
Both warring sides have in the past week expressed support for the envoy's mission to convene new talks, but fierce clashes flared again in Hodeida late Tuesday.
Residents in the east of Hodeida told AFP by telephone they could hear fighting, and reported shrapnel falling in residential neighbourhoods.
Locals said there was a limited number of people leaving the city, but some families have decided to flee in the past few weeks.
Mohammed Rashed, who is currently living in a makeshift tent to the east of the Sanaa, said he left Hodeida last week because of the clashes.
"We could not stay because of the air strikes," he told AFP.
"My house was struck, and my neighbours' homes were struck and people were killed."
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Wednesday that its teams had treated over 500 wounded since November 1 and that it remained "extremely worried for its patients and staff threatened by fighting very close" to its facilities in Hodeida.
- Call for truce -
Britain on Monday presented to the UN Security Council a draft resolution urging an immediate truce in Hodeida and setting a two-week deadline for the warring sides to remove barriers to humanitarian aid.
The proposed resolution would significantly ratchet up pressure on the Saudi-led coalition and the rebels to seek a negotiated settlement.
"What we're witnessing is a man-made humanitarian catastrophe inflicted by a conflict that has raged for too long," British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told parliament on Wednesday.
"The only solution is for all the parties to set aside their arms, cease missile and air attacks on populated areas and pursue a peaceful political settlement."
He said the draft resolution was "designed to get a consensus from both sides that allow talks to start before the end of this month in Stockholm".
The rebels overran Sanaa in late 2014, when they also took control of Hodeida and its port.
A year later, the coalition intervened as President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi fled into Saudi exile.
Both parties in the conflict stand accused of acts that could amount to war crimes.
Although Western governments have condemned civilian deaths in Yemen, they remain political and military backers of Saudi Arabia, which is a regional ally and spends billions of dollars on arms from the United States, Britain, and France.
They have come under increased domestic political pressure to temper arms deliveries since the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul last month.
The World Health Organization says nearly 10,000 people -- mostly civilians -- have been killed in Yemen since the Saudi-led intervention began, but human rights groups believe the toll may be five times higher.
Save the Children said on Wednesday that some 85,000 infants under the age of five may have died of severe malnutrition or related diseases between March 2015 and this October based on UN agency figures.
AFP
