A peace deal in Yemen’s main port city “could be dead within weeks”, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said during a visit to the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Yemeni government and the rebel Houthi movement have yet to implement a UN-brokered plan to pull out and redeploy forces around Hudaydah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The port is the principal lifeline for two-thirds of Yemen’s population, which is on the brink of famine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Hunt said 80,000 children in the country had already starved to death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than 20 million people were on the brink of starvation, he added. The UN says at least 6,800 civilians have been killed and 10,700 injured in the fighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates lead a coalition that has imposed a partial blockade in Yemen after President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi was forced to flee abroad by the Houthis – a group the Sunni states consider to be a proxy of regional Shia power Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pull-out from Hudaydah is a critical part of a ceasefire agreed in Sweden in December. It was intended to lead to broader talks to end the four-year conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The deal also involves the release of thousands of prisoners, which has also not yet taken place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Hunt, the first Western foreign minister to visit the country since the conflict began, said the two sides were now in the “last chance saloon”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking from the southern port city of Aden, which is under Yemeni government control, he urged them to take the risks necessary to secure peace<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Hunt’s visit to Aden follows meetings with President Hadi and Saudi officials in Saudi Arabia and with Houthi spokesman Mohamed Abdul Salem in Oman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last month UN officials said they had gained access to a vast store of food in Hudaydah<\/a> for the first time in six months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Red Sea Mills facility holds enough grain to feed 3.7 million people for a month, but the UN had warned the grain was at risk of rotting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The UN is appealing for aid funding. By the end of last month member states had promised $2.6bn (\u00a32bn) – a 30% increase on the amount pledged at a similar conference last year, but $1.6bn short of the total the UN hopes to raise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are the biggest potential donors this year, having pledged $500m each.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A peace deal in Yemen’s main port city “could be dead within weeks”, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said during a visit to the country. The Yemeni government and the rebel Houthi movement have yet to implement a UN-brokered plan to pull out and redeploy forces around Hudaydah. The port is the principal lifeline for two-thirds of Yemen’s population,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3185"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3186,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3185\/revisions\/3186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}