UN’s Yemen envoy urges end to clashes in Hodeidah

Al-Monitor Staff

Oct 8, 2020

A woman sits outside a tent at a displaced persons camp in the Khokha district of Yemen's western province of Hodeida, on May 6, 2020. - Almost six years of war between the Yemeni government and tenacious Iran-backed Huthi rebels has pushed millions to the brink of famine in the country ill prepared to face the new threat. Squalid camps for internally displaced people like the one in Al-Khokha, outside the Red Sea port city of Hodeida, are ideal breeding grounds for disease, with little chance for proper sa — A woman sits outside a tent at a displaced persons camp in the Khokha district of Yemen's western province of Hodeidah, on May 6, 2020. — KHALED ZIAD/AFP via Getty Images

The United Nations is urging Yemen’s warring sides to stop fighting near the Red Sea port of Hodeidah following reports of casualties among civilians, including women and children.

Despite a UN-brokered cease-fire for the Houthi-held western province of Hodeidah, fighting has raged for the past week between government forces and those allied with the Iran-aligned rebels. On Wednesday, medics told Xinhua news agency that a woman was killed when shelling struck her neighborhood.

Earlier this week, a man died during shelling in the southern part of Hodeidah city, Xinhua reported. A medical source the city's Al Thawra hospital told Agence France-Presse that five civilians south of the city have died and another 30 have been wounded since early October.

In a statement Thursday, UN special envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths called on all sides to immediately stop the fighting.

UN’s Yemen envoy urges end to clashes in Hodeidah

Martin Griffiths said he was alarmed by reports of casualties among civilians, including women and children.

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