Today, the truce declared by the Saudi-led coalition for two weeks in Yemen ended today, Thursday, without the battles between the Houthis and the legitimate forces supported by the Saudi-Emirati coalition, which stopped, especially since the Houthi group expressed its rejection of the truce from the beginning.
The coalition's unilateral announcement of the armistice came in response to a call by the United Nations to stop the fighting to allow international efforts to prevent the outbreak of the Corona epidemic in Yemen, and to create the atmosphere for a possible settlement ending the war that has lasted for more than five years.
The Houthis rejected the declared truce and accused the coalition of "practicing fraud and misleading the world," and their spokesperson Mohamed Abdel Salam said in a tweet published on April 13 that the ceasefire from the coalition "was not achieved in the first place, but rather the escalation of the air strikes and the launch of Al-Zahouf (operations)." Crawl) ".
Since he claimed the unilateral ceasefire, the aggression coalition launched more than 35 offensive operations on several fronts, and more than 250 air strikes, including 12 strikes on Sana'a, the capital and the governorate, and those field facts with the continued siege demonstrate in practice that the claim of the ceasefire is only Exposed and exposed maneuver. - Mohamed Abdel Salam (@abdusalamsalah) April 16, 2020 |
Diplomats testimonies
Reuters news agency reported that diplomats and other sources familiar with the developments expected to extend the ceasefire for at least another two weeks, if not until the end of the month of Ramadan, but they said that the coalition did not extend the ceasefire after the Houthi movement continued the attacks, and the coalition responded to Houthis with air strikes.
"The cease-fire is more symbolic than actual," one of the sources referred to in an interview with Reuters said. "The coalition found no point in extending the truce."
A Western diplomat working in Saudi Arabia revealed that the Houthis might launch a soon attack on the city of Marib if there was no agreement to a ceasefire. Marib is the center of a governorate with the same name, which is rich in oil, and is still under the control of the internationally recognized legitimate government.
International endeavors
The Reuters news agency indicated that the United Nations has tried in the past two weeks to hold talks through video communication between the parties to the conflict in Yemen, in order to establish a truce and agree on confidence-building measures between the belligerents in preparation for the resumption of peace talks aimed at ending the Yemeni crisis.
The Houthis had controlled state institutions in Sana'a, expelled the legitimate government in late 2014, controlled most of the northern governorates, and marched toward Aden (south) before the Saudi-led coalition intervened in March 2015.