Originally posted on The Associated Press, March 17, 2021
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations warned Tuesday that an offensive by Houthi rebels in Yemen has escalated the nearly six-year conflict in the Arab world’s poorest nation as it “speeds towards a massive famine.”
U.N. special envoy Martin Griffiths and U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock painted a grim picture of the political, economic and humanitarian crisis in Yemen, which is exacerbated by a government blockade of fuel ships entering the country’s main port of Hodeida controlled by the Houthis.
The intensified fighting has come amid an international and regional diplomatic push to end the conflict which began with the 2014 takeover of the capital Sanaa by the Iranian-backed Houthis. A Saudi-led coalition supported by the U.S. and allied with the government has been fighting the rebels since March 2015.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s envoy to Yemen, Tim Lenderking, last week urged the Houthis to agree to a cease-fire proposal.
Griffiths told the U.N. Security Council the Houthis’ weeks-long offensive on the oil-rich central province of Marib, the government’s last stronghold in Yemen’s northern half, has put an estimated one million already displaced civilians at risk. Fighting forces on both sides have suffered “heavy losses,” he said.
Missile and drone strikes from Houthi-controlled areas into Saudi Arabia targeting civilian and commercial infrastructure “have also increased significantly in recent weeks,” Griffiths said. And retaliatory airstrikes on Sanaa city are “endangering civilians there as well.”
Griffiths said other fronts have also opened, with government forces earlier this month launching an offensive against rebel positions in western Hajjah province, and fighting in the government-held southern province of Taiz.
The result has been “a dramatic deterioration” in the conflict, he said.
In addition to the suffering of Yemenis, Griffiths called for an independent investigation into the cause of last week’s fire at a Houthi detention center in Sanaa holding predominantly Ethiopian migrants that killed dozens and seriously injured over 170.
On the humanitarian front, Yemen, which imports most of its food and other commodities, remains the world’s worst crisis.
Both Griffiths and Lowcock urged the entry of fuel ships to Hodeida, warning that the blockade since January has increased prices of food and other goods and put hospitals and other services, including water which needs fuel for its pumps, at risk.
