Aden residents angry at UN for failing to deliver aid

Ships carrying aid from UN relief agencies waiting off Aden have not been able to dock because of security risks despite a UN-declared truce

ADEN // Frustrated by the UN’s failure to deliver desperately needed aid, residents of Aden in Yemen have started to vent their anger at the world body and at rebels besieging their city.

A UN-declared truce aimed at rushing aid to millions of Yemenis threatened with famine formally took effect late on Friday, but Saudi-led airstrikes and clashes have raged on.

Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels aided by troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh have for months besieged several areas of the port city of Aden held by fighters loyal to exiled president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi.

“Aden is on the verge of famine,” said local activist Mohammed Mossaed.

“We don’t need the truce of [UN envoy] Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed. We want an end to the siege so that aid enters the city by land and sea,” he said bitterly.

Ships carrying aid from UN relief agencies waiting off Aden have not been able to dock because of security risks.

The rebels have also prevented a convoy carrying aid from Hodeidah port from entering Aden, local activist Adnan Al Kaf said.

“There has not been a fundamental change on the ground that would allow aid disembarkment in Aden,” said Abeer Etefa, a spokeswoman of the UN’s World Food Programme.

Three aid-loaded ships continue to wait off Aden, she said on Monday.

On Friday, she said the truce was “our final hope” to reach the needy.

The UN had hoped that the six-day truce would last until the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

But just hours after it formally went into effect, the Saudi-led coalition resumed raids and fresh clashes broke out between rebels and pro-Hadi fighters.

The coalition brushed aside the ceasefire, saying it did not receive a request from Mr Hadi’s government to halt attacks, while the leader of the Houthi rebels said he did not expect the truce to take hold.

“What truce is the UN talking about ... when we are being bombed by the Houthis and the prices of tomatoes and potatoes have gone up six-fold?” said resident Yasser Mubrarak.

He summed up the feeling of Aden inhabitants who find themselves trapped in the middle of a fierce conflict where they barely find enough to eat.

“The truce only benefits the Houthis. This is what also happened during the first truce when no aid reached Aden and it was all carried to Hodeidah,” a rebel-held western port, said Anis Obbad, another resident of Aden.

He was referring to a five-day truce in May declared by the Saudi-led coalition to allow aid deliveries.

“The only solution for Aden is a Houthi pullout and lifting of the blockade,” said Mr Obbad.

A local official even accused the United Nations of “collusion” with the Houthis.

Nayef Al Bakri, vice governor of Aden and who now heads its resistance council, on Monday condemned “the inability of the organisation to provide protection” for aid-loaded ships.

He also criticised the UN’s delivery of 38 lorries carrying aid to Aden neighbourhoods that are held by the rebels, while it failed to bring aid into areas controlled by the other side.

The UN has declared Yemen a level-3 humanitarian emergency, the highest on its scale, with nearly half the country facing a food crisis.

More than 21.1 million people – over 80 per cent of Yemen’s population – need aid, with 13 million facing food shortages, while access to water has become difficult for 9.4 million people.

The UN says the conflict has killed more than 3,200 people – about half of them civilians – since late March.

* Agence France-Presse