Houthi rebels claim to begin withdrawal from Yemen ports

By Agencies and Xinhua | China Daily | Updated: 2019-05-13 07:00

The United Nations confirmed a withdrawal by Yemen's Houthi rebels from three Red Sea ports had begun on Saturday, Agence France-Presse reported.

The rebel pullback is a first step in implementing a hard-won cease-fire deal reached between Yemen's government and the Iranbacked Houthi rebels late last year.

"Yes, it has begun," said UN spokesman Farhan Haq, when AFP asked whether redeployment of Houthi troops was underway.

Sources close to the Houthis said that the ports were handed over to coast guard personnel who were in charge before the rebels took over almost five years ago.

Ahmed al-Zabidy, a witness at Salif port, told Xinhua News Agency that a group of local coast guard personnel wearing police uniforms took posts at the port after the withdrawal of Houthi militias, while a UN monitoring team was seen checking the port facility.

However, "it's more likely that the coast guards are loyal to the rebels", Zabidy added.

Hodeidah Province, the main lifeline entry of most Yemen's commercial imports and humanitarian aid, has three ports along the Red Sea, namely Hodeidah main port for commercial imports, Salif for grain imports and Ras Issa for exporting crude oil.

But the governor of Hodeida, Al-Hasan Taher, said the Houthis were merely reshuffling personnel.

"The Houthis are staging a new ploy by handing over the ports of Hodeida, Saleef and Ras Issa to themselves without any monitoring by the United Nations and the government side," the government-appointed official said.

The withdrawal of rebel forces is due to be completed by Tuesday, the head of the UN redeployment committee, General Michael Lollesgaard, said in a statement.

The UN Security Council is due to hear a briefing on Hodeidah on Wednesday.

The head of the rebels' Supreme Revolutionary Committee, Mohammed Ali al-Huthi, pledged that fighters would start pulling back at 10 am local time in a bid to restart the stalled cease-fire deal with the government.

The agreement last year in Sweden was hailed as a breakthrough that offered the best chance so far of ending the war in Yemen, where a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates is fighting on the government's side.

But although the fighting has largely stopped, there have been intermittent clashes and the promised redeployment of the warring parties away from the front lines has failed to materialize.

Yemen's information minister demanded joint verification of the promised rebel withdrawal.

"We ... warn of attempts by the militia to mislead the international community and the (UN) Security Council before the next meeting," Moammer al-Eryani tweeted.

He said any unilateral redeployment by the rebels without control and joint verification "cannot be accepted".

The coalition, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, intervened in Yemen's conflict in March 2015 to support the internationally recognized President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after Houthi rebels forced him and his government into exile in Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia.

Yemen's conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, many of them civilians, relief agencies say.

The fighting has triggered what the UN describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with 24.1 million - more than two-thirds of the population - in need of aid.