UN: Troop Withdrawal in Yemen's Hudaydah to Start Soon

Date: 19 February 2019 - 21:46

News ID: ۶۳۳۱۰

UNITED NATIONS (Dispatches) – A redeployment of forces in Yemen’s Hudaydah by the warring parties could start "possibly even today or tomorrow,” United Nations Yemen envoy Martin Griffiths told the UN Security Council on Tuesday.
The Houthi Ansarullah movement and the Saudi-backed mercenaries agreed in talks in December to withdraw troops by Jan. 7 from the main port of Hudaydah. But the deal stalled. The United Nations said on Sunday that the parties had reached agreement on phase one of a troop redeployment.
"The parties reached an agreement on Phase 1 of the mutual redeployment of forces,” the UN spokesman’s office said in a statement without giving details on what was agreed.
However, despite the dire need for a ceasefire in Yemen, the United States Army says it is still providing support for the war, which Saudi Arabia and its allies are waging against the impoverished country.
The U.S. continues to "provide support to the coalition,” Major General David C. Hill, deputy commander of US Army Central, told AFP on the sidelines of a military exhibition in the Emirati capital Abu Dhabi.
Hill was referring to a Saudi-led coalition, gathering many of the kingdom’s allies, which have been pounding Yemen since March 2015 to restore its former Riyadh-allied government.
The general alleged that the U.S. assistance was particularly meant "to help them....be discriminative in targeting and to minimize the risk of civilian causalities."
The World Health Organization says some 10,000 people have been killed since the coalition launched the war, but rights groups put the death toll at five times higher.
The U.S. has been generously providing arms support for the kingdom and its allies over the course of the war. It also lends the coalition logistical assistance, including bombing coordinates. A U.S. commando force is, meanwhile, deployed near the Saudi-Yemeni border to seek and destroy the arms caches belonging to Yemen’s popular Houthi Ansarullah movement, which defends the country against the invaders.
Last November, Washington stopped providing aerial refueling for the coalition’s warplanes. It only halted the support after the coalition grew independent of it.