Security Council considers ‘pause’ in Yemen airstrikes

Saudi Arabia's UN ambassador said Riyadh shared Russian concerns over the delivery of humanitarian assistance and the evacuation of foreigners.

UAE operations in Yemen on April 3, 2015, were named in honour of Saudi border guard Suleiman Al Maliki who was killed in a Houthi attack the day before. Wam

ADEN // The UN Security Council on Saturday discussed calls for “humanitarian pauses” in the Saudi-led coalition’s air campaign in Yemen after Russia presented a draft resolution seeking a suspension of airstrikes.

Saudi Arabia’s UN ambassador, Abdallah Al Mouallimi, said Riyadh shared Russia’s concerns over the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Yemen and the evacuation of foreigners.

“We always provided the necessary facilities for humanitarian assistance to be delivered,” he told reporters. “We have cooperated fully with all requests for evacuation.”

He said the humanitarian situation in Yemen had already been addressed in a draft resolution by Gulf states and Jordan that seeks to impose an arms embargo on Houthi rebels and allied groups.

Russia, however, wants an arms embargo imposed on the entire country, including the government.

As he headed into the council meeting, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Vladimir Safronkov, rejected claims that Moscow was supplying weapons to the Iranian-backed Houthis.

In his daily briefing, the coalition’s spokesman, Brigadier General Ahmed Assiri, said that member states were fully aware of their responsibilities towards the Yemeni people, and that the most important of these was the “human side”, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

He said the coalition had been working to ensure the evacuation of foreign nationals since the first day of its military campaign.

Russia presented its draft resolution after calling an emergency meeting of the 15-member council.

The one-page draft text did not specify the duration of a “humanitarian pause” and made no reference to previous calls by the council for the Houthis to pull back and return to political talks.

It came as the Red Cross called for a 24-hour ceasefire on Saturday to give aid workers a chance to address the “dire humanitarian situation” there.

“We urgently need an immediate halt to the fighting to allow families in the worst affected areas, such as Aden, to venture out to get food and water, or to seek medical care,” said Robert Mardini, the aid group’s head of operations in the Middle East.

Hospitals treating the wounded are running low on medicines and the streets of Aden are strewn with dead bodies, he added.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also said there were fuel and water shortages in many parts of the country, with food stocks running low.

It called for all land, air and sea routes to be immediately opened to allow the delivery of 48 tonnes of medical supplies and surgical kits that the organisation has ready to treat the 2,000 to 3,000 people who have been hurt in the fighting.

Meanwhile, Saudi-led planes struck at Houthi positions in southern Yemen on Saturday and dropped more arms to loyalist fighters

The Saudi-led coalition launched its military campaign on March 26 to stop an advance by Shiite Houthi rebels on the main southern city of Aden.

Their advance forced the country’s president, Abdrabu Mansur Hadi, to flee to Saudi Arabia.

A Saudi adviser said on Saturday that the country’s special forces were involved in the coalition’s campaign, without revealing if they had actually set foot on the ground.

Riyadh maintains it has no plans to deploy ground forces for now.

Aden, a last foothold for supporters of the exiled president, has been shaken by more than a week of fierce clashes between Shiite rebels and loyalist militia.

Coalition war planes and ships bombarded Houthi rebel positions in the city on Saturday, killing at least 13 rebel fighters, a military source said.

UAE fighter jets launched an air strike late on Friday against a number of Houthi-controlled targets, dubbing the operation “Al Maliki” in memory of the first Saudi soldier killed in the coalition campaign.

Saudi border guard Sulieman bin Ali Al Harazi Al Maliki was killed in a firefight with Houthi fighters on the Saudi-Yemen border early on Thursday morning.

The fighter jets struck a surface-to-air missile base and a radar site in Marib province and returned to their bases safely.

For a second night, the coalition also airdropped weapons and ammunition to supporters of Mr Hadi, who fled to Saudi Arabia late last month as the Houthis approached his refuge.

Pro-Hadi fighters were seen unpacking rifles from wooden crates dropped by parachute.

“We thank the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and all the Gulf countries, as well as our brothers in Arab countries, for dropping supplies,” said Ahmad Qassem Al Shaawi, a local militia chief.

“God willing, we will be victorious and bravely carry on fighting as heroes, and fight off any attack.”

Aided by the strikes and arms drops, the pro-Hadi fighters have managed to drive the rebels back from some parts of central Aden including Mr Hadi’s palace.

At least 185 dead and 1,282 wounded from the clashes have been counted in hospitals in Aden since March 26, the city’s health department director Al Kheder Lassouar said, adding that three-quarters were civilians.

This toll does not include casualties among the Houthi rebels and their allies, however, as they do not take their casualties to public hospitals, Mr Lassouar said.

He called on international organisations and Arab states participating in the coalition to provide emergency medical assistance to hospitals in Aden.

“Medicine stocks are exhausted and hospitals can no longer cope with the increasing number of victims,” he said.

On Thursday, UN aid chief Valerie Amos said she was “extremely concerned” about the fate of civilians in the country, reporting that 519 people had been killed and nearly 1,700 injured in two weeks of fierce fighting.

The UN children’s agency said at least 62 children had been killed and 30 injured over the past week, and that more were being recruited as child soldiers.

British deputy ambassador Peter Wilson said his country continues to “support the Saud-led action in Yemen in response to a legitimate request from president Hadi.”

While Britain deplores civilian casualties, “the only way out of this crisis is to return to political talks on an equal basis,” Mr Wilson said.

The UN is backing Mr Hadi as Yemen’s legitimate leader in the face of the Houthi uprising that has plunged the poor Arab state deeper into chaos.

The Houthis seized power in the capital Sanaa in February.

* Agence France-Presse with additional reporting by Wam