First UN aid flight to Yemen lands in country

Fighters of the Popular Resistance Committees rush a comrade to a hospital after he was injured during clashes with Houthi fighters in Yemen's southwestern city of Taez on May 15. Reuters

GENEVA // The first of six cargo planes taking 150 tonnes of urgently needed shelter and relief items to Yemen landed in the capital on Friday, the UN refugee agency said, with a second to follow later in the day.

The flight, carrying blankets, kitchen utensils and sleeping mats, arrived in Sanaa from Dubai, the UNHCR said on the third day of a five-day ceasefire in the war-torn country.

“Four more flights will follow over the next two days, provided local security conditions allow,” a statement said. “[M]ore aid is on its way via Djibouti by sea – part of a larger aid effort under way for 250,000 people.”

The delivery took place despite reports of ground clashes in several parts of Yemen on Friday, including heavy fighting in the city of Taez that killed at least ten people.

Clashes were also reported by residents and security officials in the provinces of Marib and Shabwa.

“At the moment the pause is globally holding, though I have to say every day we see skirmishes, localised and of short duration, but we still see that there is military activity,” the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Johannes van der Klaauw, said on Friday, citing clashes in the southern city of Aden, along with Taez.

A Saudi-led coalition of Arab states, including the UAE, launched an air campaign against Shiite Houthi rebels on March 26, after they seized much of the country and forced president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi into exile.

On the ground, the Iranian-allied Houthis – backed by forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh – are battling fighters loyal to Mr Hadi.

Both sides agreed to the five-day truce, which was intended to allow badly needed humanitarian aid into the country.

“Nothing has changed with this truce. People are still fighting and the Houthis are still in control,” said Alawi Al Afouri, a resident in the southern city of Aden.

“The legitimate Yemeni government is scattered abroad and has no authority inside.”

Officials from Hadi’s government in exile mostly live in Riyadh and have little influence on the ground in Yemen.

Meanwhile, tribal sources said on Friday that Houthi fighters had withdrawn from the border area between Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

Impoverished and strife-torn even before the war, Yemen is now mired in a humanitarian catastrophe, with hundreds of thousands displaced and 12 million people short of food.

Some 1,600 people, many of them civilians, have been killed since the violence erupted in late March, while more than 6,200 others have been injured.

The UNHCR said on Friday that some 450,000 Yemenis had fled inside the country since late March, joining some 330,000 people already internally displaced inside Yemen.

Some 250,000 Somali refugees in Yemen have also been impacted by the fighting, while around 29,000 people have fled to neighbouring countries

The UN’s Mr van der Klaauw urged the Saudi-led coalition to ease inspections of Yemen-bound cargo to allow vital commercial and humanitarian goods into the country.

However, he said the temporary truce was providing “essential respite to the civilian population to get out of the conflict zone, to have some breathing space, to have access to services.”

“It also allows us to remove the dead bodies and then evacuate the wounded and allow for critical medical treatment,” he said.

Also Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it was increasing shipments of medical supplies to Yemen during the humanitarian pause.

“More than 20 tonnes of medicines and medical supplies have been flown from WHO’s humanitarian hub in Dubai to Djibouti, where they will be loaded on a UN vessel departing for Hodeida today,” it said in a statement.

A shipping source in Yemen said that seven ships with fuel, wheat and food supplies had docked in Hodeida and in Al Mukalla on Friday.

In the capital Sanaa, which is under Houthi control, residents say petrol stations have started working again and that long queues of vehicles have been waiting since Thursday night.

The Houthi-run Saba news agency said new fuel shipments have reached Yemen and were being distributed across the country.

* Agencies