UN envoy Martin Griffiths arrived in the battleground Yemeni port city of Hodeida on Friday to encourage the warring sides to exercise restraint ahead of planned peace talks in December.
Griffiths’s visit is intended to send a message to the rebels, who control the Red Sea city, and the government forces, who have been attacking it with support from a Saudi-led coalition, to keep a lid on hostilities in the run-up to the talks in Sweden, a UN source told AFP.
Griffiths, who arrived in the rebel-held capital Sanaa on Wednesday, met rebel chief Abdulmalik al-Huthi to discuss “what can facilitate new discussions in December”, rebel spokesman Mohammed Abdelsalam said.
The conflict in Yemen, which escalated when the Saudi-led coalition intervened in 2015, has killed thousands of people and left up to 14 million at risk of famine, according to UN agencies.
An estimated 85,000 children under five may have starved to death in Yemen since 2015, Save the Children said on Thursday.
In the past week, both sides have expressed support for the UN envoy’s mission to relaunch peace talks, and fighting in Hodeida has calmed despite intermittent clashes.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)
