A two-month ceasefire began in Yemen on Saturday. “From tonight, all offensive military actions on land, in the air and at sea must stop,” said UN Special Envoy Hans Grundberg. The ceasefire officially went into effect at 19:00 (local time, 18:00 CEST). Its beginning coincides with the beginning of the Islamic fasting month, Ramadan. The US, Germany and Austria appealed to the warring parties to start a peace process.
The two-month ceasefire was agreed on Friday. If all parties agree, it can also be extended. The Houthi rebels confirmed on Saturday their willingness to end all military activities under the agreed ceasefire “provided the other party complies”. The Riyadh-led military coalition also stressed that it wanted to maintain the ceasefire.
Both sides also agreed to allow 18 tankers to dock at Hodeidah Port and allowed certain commercial flights to depart and land at Sana’a Airport. Currently, only UN flights are allowed at the capital’s airport, which is controlled by Houthi rebels. The conflicting parties also want to talk about opening roads in some parts of the country to improve people’s freedom of movement.
“The success of this initiative will depend on the willingness of the conflicting parties to abide by the ceasefire and implement the planned humanitarian measures,” said UN Special Envoy Grundberg. The US also appealed to the warring parties to abide by the agreed pause in fighting. Furthermore, the “road to a sustainable ceasefire and an inclusive political peace process” must be paved, US Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking wrote on Twitter.
The ceasefire was also welcomed by the Austrian Foreign Ministry. This gives Yemenis “a long-awaited respite from the violence and humanitarian suffering,” the ministry said on Twitter late on Friday. “Austria calls on the parties to work with UN Special Envoy Hans Grundberg on a political solution for Yemen.”
The Foreign Ministry in Berlin welcomed the ceasefire brokered by Grundberg and the “confidence-building measures”. “The war has been going on in Yemen for more than seven years, with terrible consequences and suffering for the local population,” the Foreign Ministry said. “The measures that have now been agreed give hope for an improvement in the humanitarian situation and represent a long-awaited step in the right direction.” Germany hopes “that the warring parties will use the ceasefire for constructive United Nations-led negotiations on a permanent ceasefire, further confidence-building measures and a fundamental solution to the conflict.”
Previous truces did not last long. A national ceasefire before peace talks in April 2016 was broken almost immediately, as were other ceasefires that year. In 2018, an agreement to end fighting around the rebel-held port city of Hodeidah was largely ignored.
Yemen has been at war since 2015 between President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s troops, backed by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Arab states, and the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. According to the UN, around 380,000 people have already been killed in the conflict and millions more have had to flee. The UN considers the crisis in Yemen the greatest humanitarian catastrophe in the world.