UN air strikes in Yemen down 80%, UN envoy says

The United Nations special envoy to Yemen Martin Griffith told the UN Security Council on Friday that the number of air strikes carried out by the Saudi-UAE coalition in Yemen has dropped by about 80% in the last two weeks.

"In the most important indication that things are changing in Yemen, the rate of airstrikes in the last two weeks has dropped dramatically," Griffiths said during a speech to the Security Council on the latest developments in Yemen.

He said that the decline in the rhythm of the war is evidence of the prospect of peace for the parties concerned in the conflict in Yemen, stressing that it is imperative for the parties to the conflict in Yemen to reach arrangements to end the fighting, and pointed out that the situation has changed over the past years.

He stressed that the situation in Hodeidah provides evidence of the importance of concessions in order to calm the war that has been going on for years throughout Yemen.

"We have previously asked for flexible solutions in order to introduce oil shipments from Hodeidah port and benefit from its revenues."

Earlier, Griffiths said he had seen in his meetings with Yemeni parties a desire for a political solution to the crisis, expressing concern that the political and security landscape, both on the fronts and elsewhere, has become increasingly fragmented.

Griffiths said the United Nations hopes to end the conflict in the first months of 2020.

Look for a truce
Earlier this month, Reuters quoted three sources as saying Saudi Arabia, which leads the coalition in Yemen, was stepping up informal talks with the Houthi group on a ceasefire.

According to the sources, the talks began in late September in Jordan, after the Houthis offered to stop firing rockets and launch cross-border drone attacks on Saudi cities, in return for the coalition halting its air strikes.

"Talks on completing the security agreement are moving very quickly now through several channels," a fourth source said, but Riyadh still had concerns about its borders.

For his part, a Saudi official - according to Reuters - that his country has an open channel with the Houthis since 2016, and it is continuing contacts to establish peace in Yemen.

The Saudi-led coalition intervened in March 2015 at the request of Yemeni President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, after the Houthis ousted his government from the capital Sana'a.

The war has claimed the lives of about 100,000 people and pushed millions to the brink of starvation, according to the NGO Data on Sites and Events of Armed Conflict.