(Dubai) The UN says it is negotiating a new truce in Yemen, a country devastated by more than seven years of war where a truce in force for six months expired without extension on Sunday evening, the rebels threatening Gulf oil countries members of a pro-government military coalition.
Posted at 8:12 p.m.
The truce, in effect since April 2 and renewed in extremis twice, expired on Sunday without the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels reaching an agreement to renew it.
The conflict ravaging Yemen pits government forces, supported since 2015 by a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia, against Houthi rebels, close to Iran. The insurgents control the capital Sanaa and large swathes of territory in the north and west of the country.
The UN envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, “regretted” the non-renewal of the truce, promising “strenuous efforts” to revive it.
“I will continue to work with both parties to try to find solutions”, assured the Swedish diplomat in a press release published on Sunday, claiming to have submitted to the belligerents a proposal to extend the truce for a period of additional six months including ” new elements.
He thanked the Yemeni government for reacting “positively” to his proposals. On the other hand, the Houthi rebels judged that they did not meet the aspirations of the Yemeni people, threatening to resume their attacks against the main member countries of the coalition.
The Yemeni government, via a tweet from its embassy in the United States, called on the UN Security Council on Sunday for “firmness towards the Houthis because of their refusal to extend the truce and their latest threat “.
In a statement relayed by Saba, the Houthis’ news agency, the spokesman for their armed forces Yahya Sari explicitly threatened to target “oil companies in the Emirates and Saudi Arabia”, two of the largest crude oil exporters in the country. world.
The United States on Monday expressed “deep concern” over the expiration of the truce, stressing that it represented “the best hope for peace for the people of Yemen in years”.
“The choice of the parties is simple: on the one hand peace and a better future for Yemen, on the other a return to sterile destruction and suffering that will further fracture and isolate an already devastated country,” the spokesperson added. State Department spokesman Ned Price in a statement.
Humanitarian tragedy
In 2019, airstrikes claimed by the Houthis against two facilities of oil giant Aramco in eastern Saudi Arabia temporarily halted half of the kingdom’s crude production.
In March, another attack on Aramco facilities again caused a temporary drop in production.
The conflict in Yemen, the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula, has plunged it into one of the worst humanitarian tragedies in the world, which the truces of two successive months had made it possible to relatively mitigate, according to humanitarian organizations.
“Over the past six months, the truce has offered respite to millions of Yemenis and hope for a long-term resolution to the conflict,” the regional director of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday. ) Fabrizio Carboni, calling on the rebels and the Yemeni government to “continue the dialogue and put the interests of the people first. »
For Elisabeth Kendall, a researcher at the University of Oxford, it is still possible for the belligerents to reach an agreement.
“The truce can still be resuscitated. The parties to the conflict may be seeking to improve their positions by letting the deadline pass, ”said the researcher.
“But our best hope at this stage would be to reach an interim measure rather than a renewal of the truce for six months as hoped by the UN,” she adds.
In addition to the relative cessation of violence, successive truces have notably allowed the return of limited flights to and from Sanaa airport, for the first time in six years.
They have also paved the way for the smoother flow of goods, fuel and humanitarian aid on which two-thirds of the population of around 30 million depend.
According to the UN, the war left hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced, with a good part of the population in a situation close to famine.
Talks to put a definitive end to the conflict remain at a standstill, while the UN envoy spoke in August of “consolidating the opportunity offered by the truce to move towards a lasting peace”.