ADEN, Yemen, Feb 13 (NNN-SABA) – A total of 76 people were killed during the period of a cease-fire, brokered by the United Nations in Dec, 2018, according to local military observers.
The Houthi rebels controlling the strategic Red Sea port city of Hodeidah have committed 1,112 cases of breach, since the beginning of the UN-brokered cease-fire on Dec 18 last year to Feb 9, the military observers said.
“Those cease-fire breaches claimed the lives of 76 people, mostly civilians, and injured 492 others, some of them with critical wounds,” read the observers’ report.
“The Houthis’ breaches included the use of various kinds of arms, targeting houses of ordinary citizens, public places and sites of the national army in Hodeidah,” according to the report.
The report mentioned a previous attack, conducted by the Houthis against a UN mission responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Stockholm Agreement in Hodeidah, and “the attack against UN-maintained food warehouses” in Hodeidah.
The report concluded, “The Houthi rebels have also been bolstering their defences on a large scale, planting landmines and digging underground trenches, in the city’s entrances and around key military sites.”
On Monday, the official military spokesman of the Houthi rebels, Yahya Sarie, said that, the Saudi Arabia-led coalition and its local allies do not want to stop the war, to achieve peace for the Yemeni people.
The spokesman said, “The intensive violations of the aggressive coalition of cease-fire in Hodeidah, confirm their desire to prolong the war and create more sufferings and sieges against the Yemeni people.”
Local forces loyal to the Yemeni government committed 260 new violations in Hodeidah during the past 48 hours, targeting homes and farms of citizens and positions of the rebels, according to the Houthi military spokesman.
Earlier in the day, the UN special envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, warned that the grain aid stored in the besieged Hodeidah city, to feed over three million people is “at risk of rotting,” asking the rival parties to allow the UN team to urgently access to the mills to deliver the aid to the needy.
He said, the food aid has been inaccessible for more than five months and demanded no further delay.– NNN-SABA
