Jeremy Hunt made an unannounced but an entirely welcome visit to Aden last Sunday (Yemen ceasefire at risk with 20m close to starving, says Hunt, 4 March), the first by a senior British official since 85,000 children starved to death.
He is now a witness to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Three-quarters of the population – up to 22.2 million people – are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance; over 2 million have been displaced and 60,000 killed in the fighting.
He now has a duty to ensure that the UK, as pen-holder for Yemen at the UN, must continue to work closely with Martin Griffiths, the UN special envoy, to ensure that the Stockholm agreement does not fail.
Our parliament, our government and our country must use every available tool to press both sides – the coalition and the Houthis – to implement the agreement and come back to the table for peace talks.
A nationwide ceasefire must be agreed immediately, and the aid so desperately needed must be allowed into the country. Only then do we have a chance of resolving this conflict. Mr Hunt must keep Yemen at the top of the Foreign Office’s agenda.
Keith Vaz MP
Chair, all-party parliamentary group for Yemen
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