ADEN (Dispatches) – The UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen has urged the country’s warring parties “to commit to extending and expanding the truce.”
“I strongly urge the parties to the conflict to heed calls by the UN Secretary-General and his Special Envoy for Yemen for truce extension and expansion to build on the gains achieved over the last six months,” David Gressly said in a statement.
“The people of Yemen need peace. Without it, the drivers of the humanitarian crisis would persist, and people would continue to suffer,” Gressly added.
“The truce, which first came into effect on 2 April 2022, improved humanitarian access to people in need living in previously hard-to-reach areas, enhanced people’s access to services and encouraged the return of internally displaced people to their original communities in areas near the frontlines,” he said.
Noting that the truce has also improved the flow of fuel into Yemen’s Red Sea ports and led to the opening of Sana’a airport to commercial flights, he said some 26,642 people have been able to travel on commercial flights from the capital Sana’a, many of whom were critically ill and seeking medical treatment abroad.
The spokesman of Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres has also expressed disappointment about a lack of agreement between the Saudi-led coalition and Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement to extend the truce in the war-torn Arab country.
“It is disappointing to see that the two sides did not agree on new proposals to extend the ceasefire,” Stephane Dujarric said in a press conference at the UN headquarters in New York. “However, negotiations are still ongoing and UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, continues to explore options that are acceptable to both sides.”
Dujarric called on both sides to maintain calm, refrain from any provocation or actions that may lead to escalation of violence, interact with each other and focus on completing the negotiations.
“Despite the UN’s disappointment with the current situation, we believe that this is not the end of the road and there is still time for the two sides to agree on the continuation of the ceasefire,” the UN spokesman underlined.
Back in April, a temporary United Nations-mediated ceasefire was reached between the warring sides in Yemen and was later renewed twice for two-month periods.
The truce, however, expired on Sunday amid the Saudi-led coalition’s constant violations of the agreement and its refusal to properly lift a siege that it has been enforcing against Yemen since the beginning of the war.
Mohammed Abdul-Salam, the spokesman of Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement, censured the aggressor coalition for failing to renew the UN-brokered truce deal and deteriorating the humanitarian crisis in the impoverished Arab country.
Saudi Arabia launched the devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with its Arab allies and with arms and logistics support from the US and other Western states.