SANA’A (Dispatches) – The
humanitarian needs of Yemenis are “enormous and beyond imagination,” the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Yemen has warned.
It said the UN truce declared in Yemen is very important as it includes the cessation of military operations for a period of two months.
“We continue to do our best to provide humanitarian assistance to those in need throughout the country, but the needs remain enormous and beyond imagination,” the head of the Red Cross delegation in Yemen, Katharina Ritz, said.
“We continue to support and raise awareness about the thousands of missing Yemenis who are detained or separated from their families,” Ritz added.
“The two-month truce is just in time,” she said. Yemenis have suffered the brunt of the Saudi-led aggression over the past seven years.
On Saturday, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, announced the UN truce, which includes stopping military operations in Yemen for a renewable period of two months.
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies — particularly the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — launched the 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 the tight siege, has failed to reach its goals, killing hundreds of thousands of Yemeni people. Under the siege, the Saudi-led coalition has been preventing much-needed fuel shipments from reaching Yemen.
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.
In recent months, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have escalated their airstrikes across Yemen, and in response, have been targeted by the Yemeni forces in several retaliatory drone and missile attacks.
A senior member of Yemen’s popular Ansarullah resistance movement has stressed that the liberation of the impoverished country will be achieved inevitably.
Speaking at an interview with Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen television network, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of Ansarullah’s political bureau said “The liberation of Yemen is inevitably coming.”
He also expressed his country’s readiness to reach an “honorable peace” agreement that “guarantees the dignity and safety of all Yemenis.”
He noted that the member countries of the Saudi-led coalition waging war on Yemen “will never allow a Yemeni-Yemeni dialogue free of foreign interventions… as that contradicts their interests.”
The official urged parties that had called for foreign intervention in Yemen to unite behind the Yemeni armed forces in order to complete the liberation operation.