The Saudi-led coalition has seized a new fuel ship headed for Yemen’s port of Hodeidah in violation of a ceasefire agreement brokered by the UN, according to the Yemen Petroleum Company (YPC).

YPC spokesman Essam al-Mutawakel said that coalition warships prevented the Harvest oil tanker from reaching the Yemeni port, despite having been inspected and cleared by the UN.

This is the third fuel ship seized by Riyadh’s forces since the start of a two-month ceasefire on 2 April, at the beginning of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

The Harvest was reportedly carrying 29,976 tons of diesel for the war-ravaged country.

Just a day earlier, the US navy announced the creation of a multinational task force to patrol the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandab Strait, and the Gulf of Aden, in a step to demonstrate their commitment to the war led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE in Yemen.

Yemen – West Asia’s poorest nation – has been facing an acute humanitarian situation since 2015 when Saudi Arabia and its regional allies invaded the country with the aim of overthrowing the Ansarallah resistance movement from power.

The resultant war has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions more. On 5 April, the director general of the Yemen Executive Mine Action Center revealed that Riyadh had dropped more than three million cluster bombs in Yemen.

The situation has been worsened by the illegal air and sea blockade imposed by the Saudi-led coalition. The blockade has severely restricted the entry of humanitarian aid and essential goods, such as fuel and food, into the country, and has caused what the UN calls “one of the worst humanitarian crises of our time.”