FILE – Workers inspect damages at the site of an air strike on the maintenance hub at Hodeidah port. (Photo credit: ABDO HYDER / AFP)
In a statement issued on 25 July, the Yemeni Supreme Political Council declared that the stipulations of the UN-brokered ceasefire must be fully implemented.
The specific sections of the ceasefire agreement emphasized in the statement were to lift the blockades on both the port of Hodeidah and Sanaa International Airport, and to allow the payment of government employee salaries.
“The extension of the truce requires a commitment to pay the salaries of all employees and the resumption of all the services that were cut off by the Saudi-led coalition to increase the suffering of the Yemeni people,” the Sanaa government said in a statement.
Despite the thousands of violations of the UN-brokered truce by the Saudi-led coalition, there has been no effort to stop the violations or to reprimand the coalition for its violations.
In a statement released on 16 July, the Supreme Political Council in Yemen rejected the idea of extending the UN-brokered truce, citing the coalition’s continued breach of the terms.
The ceasefire agreement, initially implemented on 2 April, was extended for two months on 2 June, and is set to expire next month.
The Sanaa leadership acknowledged that the UN had not tried to bridge the gap to access the necessary funds to pay government employees.
The Yemeni Supreme Political Council said they had made the initiative to open an account in the Central Bank branch in Hodeidah, and the earnings of the port were sent to that branch to contribute to government employee salaries.
Yemen has accused the Saudi-led coalition of carrying out a systematic campaign aimed at depleting the country’s natural resources by the consistent looting of Yemeni gas and crude oil.
According to government officials, the coalition has looted and sold millions of barrels of Yemeni crude oil – worth hundreds of millions of dollars – by dispatching large tankers that arrive at the country’s ports “at an almost monthly rate.”
The theft of much-needed oil derivatives in Yemen exacerbates the multiple crises affecting the country, including an imminent famine.
According to a recent UN report, 19 million Yemenis are currently facing severe hunger, the highest number since the start of the invasion by the Saudi-led coalition in 2015.