UN envoy in rare Yemen visit to push for peace amid Houthi new offensive

Ahram Online , Monday 6 Jan 2025

Hans Grundberg, the United Nation's special envoy for war-torn Yemen, arrived Monday in the rebel-held capital in a bid to breathe life into peace talks, his office said, amid a renewed Houthi offensive that has seen attacks against both U.S. and Israeli targets.

UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg arrives at Sanaa International Airport in the Huthi-held Y
UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg arrives at Sanaa International Airport in the Huthi-held Yemeni capital. AFP

 

Grundberg last visited the capital Sanaa, controlled by the Houthis, in May 2023 for meetings with the rebels' leaders in an earlier effort to advance a roadmap for peace.

The envoy's current visit "is part of his ongoing efforts to urge for concrete and essential actions... for advancing the peace process", Grundberg's office said in a statement, reported by AFP.

Yemen has been at war since 2014, when the Houthis forced the internationally recognised government out of Sanaa. The rebels have also seized population centres in the north.

In March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition intervened to prop up the beleaguered government.

A UN-brokered ceasefire in April 2022 calmed fighting and in December 2023 the warring parties committed to a peace process.

But tensions have surged during the Israeli war on Gaza, as the Houthis struck Israeli targets and related shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, in solidarity with the Palestinians.

Israel as well as the United States and Britain have hit Houthi targets in Yemen over the past year. One Israeli raid hit Sanaa's international airport.

On Monday night, the group announced that it had carried out four military operations against a US aircraft carrier in the Red Sea and key targets in Israel.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a statement that they had conducted a "special joint military operation" against the USS Harry Truman, an American aircraft carrier located in the northern Red Sea.

Saree stated that the attack, carried out with two cruise missiles and four drones, thwarted an imminent large-scale US airstrike against Yemen.

Furthermore, the Houthi military announced that they had executed three separate operations against Israeli targets. These included two military sites in Jaffa, struck by three drones, and a vital Israeli target in Ashkelon, hit by a single drone.

Grundberg's office said his visit would also "support the release of the arbitrarily detained UN, NGO, civil society and diplomatic mission personnel," AFP added.

Dozens of staff from UN and other humanitarian organisations have been detained by the rebels, most of them since June, with the Houthis accusing them of belonging to a "US-Israeli spy network."

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