Clashes Erupt in Yemen Hours Before Planned Truce by UN Envoy

The conflict between the Yemeni government and its Houthi rebel foes has killed more than 6,200 people.

Houthi fighters ride a patrol truck in Sanaa on 25 March 2015. (Photo: Reuters)

Fighting broke out, north of Yemen’s capital and in the centre of the country on Sunday, killing more than 20 people, hours before a planned truce to the fighting aimed at facilitating talks to end the year-long war.

Yemen’s government and its Iran-allied Houthi enemies are supposed to implement the UN-backed “cessation of hostilities” from midnight (2100 GMT) before peace negotiations begin in Kuwait on 18 April.

The war has killed more than 6,200 people, drawn in rival regional powers Saudi Arabia and Iran and tipped one of the Arab world’s poorest countries into a humanitarian crisis.

Hours before the planned halt in fighting, heavy battles flared between forces loyal to Yemen’s President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and Houthi fighters in al-Maton, a town north of the capital Sanaa, killing and wounding several fighters, local residents said, without giving precise figures.

People stand on a tank that was burnt during clashes on a street in Yemen’s southern port city of Aden. (Photo: AP)

Hadi, whose forces are backed by a Saudi-led military coalition which has been carrying out airstrikes in Yemen for the past year, met his advisers in Riyadh on Sunday to discuss the impending halt in fighting, Yemeni officials said.

They said the Houthis had not yet informed the United Nations about their latest position on the agreement to stop fighting. A spokesperson for the Houthis could not immediately be reached for comment.

The UN’s Yemen envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed has urged parties to the war to “engage constructively” in the new round of peace talks in Kuwait.

Ismail welcomed the start of a tentative truce in the country’s year-old conflict on Monday and said peace talks, due to start later this month, would require difficult compromises for all sides.

“Now is the time to step back from the brink,” Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said in a statement following the start of the UN-backed cessation of hostilities at on Sunday.

The truce terms included commitments for unhindered access for relief aid to all of Yemen, where the United Nations says hundreds of thousands of children face life-threatening malnutrition and millions lack health care or clean water. The progress made represents a real opportunity to rebuild a country that has suffered far too much violence for far too long. A positive outcome will require difficult compromises from all sides, courage and determination to reach an agreement.

Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, UN’s Special Envoy for Yemen