Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance movement announced on 14 September that a container ship that set sail from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia has docked in the western port city of Hudaydah.

This marked the first time since the start of the Saudi-led war that a ship sailing from Jeddah has docked in the city controlled by Ansarallah fighters.

“The first ship loaded with containers sailed directly from Jeddah to Hudaydah since the start of the siege and bombardment of the port by the aggressors (Saudi-led coalition),” the chairman of the Houthi Supreme Revolutionary Committee, Muhammad Ali al-Houthi, said via Twitter.

اول سفينةتبحر محملةبالحاويات مباشرةمن جدة الى ميناء الحديدة مذ تم الحصار والقصف للميناء من قبل العدوان الأمريكي البريطاني السعودي الاماراتي وحلفائه
نأمل من الاخوة في القطاع الخاص الى تحمل مسؤوليتهم والاستيراد عبر ميناء الحديدة لما لذلك من تخفيف من الغلاء على المواطن بنقص التكاليف pic.twitter.com/1Tr3yUel8v

— محمد علي الحوثي (@Moh_Alhouthi) September 13, 2021

The Ansarallah leader went on to add that “the continuation of the flow of goods through the Port of Hudaydah is a right step in enhancing confidence to move towards a comprehensive peace.”

He also said that it is no longer reasonable for Riyadh to find more justifications to prevent ships sailing from its ports from docking in Hudaydah.

Saudi authorities have previously forced ships headed to the Ansarallah-controlled city to transit through Djibouti first before heading towards Yemen.

The Saudi-led coalition offered no comment on al-Houthi’s announcement.

Since 2015, Saudi Arabia, along with its NATO allies, has waged a brutal war in Yemen that has left hundreds of thousands dead and millions of others displaced in a country that was already considered the Arab world’s poorest prior to the war.

The Ansarallah movement also accuses the Saudi-led coalition of imposing a siege on the port of Hudaydah and preventing the flow of goods and oil derivatives, effectively pushing the country to the brink of famine.