Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, who flew in to the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, on Friday, opened the mission on Saturday to discuss the postponed Geneva talks aimed at ending the crisis in the war-hit Arab country.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had urged all Yemeni sides to attend the Geneva talks, which were initially set for May 28. The talks were postponed after the fugitive former Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, said in a letter to the UN secretary general that he would not be present during the talks unless his demands are met.
Yemen has been under Saudi airstrikes since March 26. The military aggression, carried out without a UN mandate, is meant to restore power to Hadi, who is a close ally of the Riyadh regime.
In its latest acts of aggression on Saturday, Saudi warplanes bombarded a hospital in the Bani Hashish district of Yemen’s western province of Sana’a.
According to the UN, about 2,000 people have been killed and more than 500,000 displaced as a result of the conflict in Yemen.