SANA’A (Dispatches) – The Sana’a-based National Salvation
Government will not feel obligated to extend the UN-sponsored nationwide ceasefire that took effect at the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, as long as people are suffering from poverty, hunger and poor health, a high-ranking Yemeni official says.
“More is said than done as regards the Yemen ceasefire. The [Saudi-led] coalition of aggression does not bother to honor the terms and conditions of the truce. The Saudi-led alliance has recurrently violated the ceasefire,” al-Masirah television network quoted Deputy Prime Minister for Defense Affairs Jalal al-Ruwishan as saying.
Ruwishan added, “We have reported all the violations to the office of the UN special envoy for Yemen [Hans Grundberg], but all to no avail.”
“As long as the suffering of Yemeni people continues, there is no point extending the ceasefire,” he stressed.
Meanwhile, a Yemeni military official said on Tuesday the Saudi-led coalition forces and their allied militants have violated the ongoing UN-brokered ceasefire at least 135 times during the past 24 hours.
The official, who asked not to be named, told Yemen’s official Saba news agency that the violations included six flights of Saudi-led warplanes in the skies of the northern province of Jawf as well as 40 flights of armed reconnaissance aircraft over the provinces of Ma’rib, Ta’izz, Hajjah, Jawf, Sa’ada, Sana’a, Dhale and across the borders.
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 U.S. and other Western states.
The objective was to reinstall the Riyadh-friendly regime of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and crush the Ansarullah resistance movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of a functional government in Yemen.
While the Saudi-led coalition has failed to meet any of its objectives, the war has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.