SANA’A (Dispatches) – The warring sides in Yemen’s seven-year conflict have agreed to a two-month nationwide truce, starting with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the United Nations envoy has said.
The UN-brokered deal on Friday between a Saudi-led coalition and Yemeni forces is the most significant step yet towards ending a conflict that has killed tens of thousands and pushed millions into hunger. The last coordinated cessation of hostilities nationwide was during talks in 2016.
UN special envoy Hans Grundberg said the two-month truce would come into effect at 7pm local time (16:00 GMT) on Saturday and could be renewed with the consent of the parties.
“The parties accepted to halt all offensive military air, ground and maritime operations inside Yemen and across its borders; they also agreed for fuel ships to enter into Hudaydah ports and commercial flights to operate in and out of Sana’a airport to predetermined destinations in the region,” he said in a statement.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the truce and expressed hope for a “political process” to bring peace to the country.
“You must take that momentum in order to make sure that this truce is fully respected and that it is renewed and … that a true political process is launched,” Guterres told reporters.
“This demonstrates that even when things look impossible when there is the will to compromise, peace becomes possible.”
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies — including the United Arab Emirates — launched a brutal war against Yemen in March 2015. The war was meant to eliminate Yemen’s popular Ansarullah movement and reinstall a former regime.
The conflict, accompanied by a tight siege, has failed to reach its goals, but has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemeni people.
The Saudi-led coalition has been preventing fuel shipments from reaching Yemen, while looting the impoverished nation’s resources.
According to the UN Office for Humanitarian Coordination (OCHA), more than 23 million, out of 31.9 million people in Yemen, face hunger, disease, and other life-threatening risks as the country’s basic services and economy are collapsing.
The International Organisation for Migration warned on Friday that over 25.5 million Yemenis are living beneath the poverty line due to the repercussions of the war in the country which has been going on for more than seven years.
With the hashtag “Yemen Can’t Wait,” the UN migration body also said on Twitter that the war has, so far, displaced over 4 million people and forced more than 2 million children out of school.
Yemen’s acting Minister of Human Rights Ali al-Dailami has slammed the United Nations over its failure to take any serious measures against the targeting of Yemeni children by the Saudi-led coalition waging war on the impoverished country.
Al-Dailami told Yemen’s al-Masirah television network on Friday that the UN children’s agency (UNICEF) and other organizations concerned with children are only seeking to cover up the crimes committed by the Saudi-led coalition.
He stressed that the UN should reconsider its policies toward Yemen, saying “We no longer accepts half-solutions.”