The United Nations’ top official in Yemen warned Monday that the Arab world’s poorest country will remain a powder keg for renewed war unless its rival factions work out a new cease-fire deal.
Hans Grundberg, the UN special representative for Yemen, told The Associated Press the situation in the conflict-stricken country is fragile nearly a year after the internationally recognized government and the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels failed to renew a UN-brokered cease-fire.
The conflict has been restrained since then, with only sporadic clashes, but Grundberg said a resumption of all-out fighting is a threat.
The end to the cease-fire arrangement was a blow to UN efforts to find a negotiated settlement to the conflict, which has devastated the country and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.
Yemen’s war began when the Houthis descended from their strongholds in northern Yemen and seized the capital of Sanaa in 2014, forcing the government to flee to the south and then into exile in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis entered the war in 2015, heading a military coalition that sided with the government and the conflict became a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran
Read more here.
