The Yemeni city of Al Hudeida is still awaiting the application of the truce
The Yemeni city of Al Hudeida, on the coast of the Red Sea, is waiting for the ceasefire agreement reached last Thursday between the belligerent parties, which continue sporadic exchanges of sporadic gunfire in the outskirts.
Witnesses told Efe that the forces of the Houthi Shiite rebels and the official Yemeni Army, supported by the coalition led by Saudi Arabia, have exchanged fire and artillery fire sporadically in recent days, after the signing of the agreement reached in Sweden with UN mediation.
Mohamed Ozman Yehia, 27, said by telephone that "no tangible change has occurred at all" in the city, in whose entrances there are trenches, sandbags and military weapons.
"We went through the streets of the city and there is nothing to indicate the application of the truce," said this inhabitant of Al Hudeida, a city controlled by the Houthis and strategically important for its port, which is the main access gate in the city. country for food and humanitarian aid.
Another resident of the city, Mohamed al Atab, 25, said gunfire was heard with light and medium weapons in the suburb of Siete de Julio, in the east of the city, since Friday afternoon.
Osama Mohamed, 29, said that "the situation is still tense in the city" and factories have not yet opened, so work has not been resumed, nor have humanitarian corridors been established to allow the arrival of humanitarian aid.
The youth assured that "no part withdrew his forces" and commented that the fighters "still have their hands on the trigger," while warplanes "continue to fly over the city's sky."
The Houthi government, which controls Sana'a and practically the entire northwest of the country, has reported that government forces have carried out artillery attacks outside Al Hudeida despite the agreement.
General Yehia Saria of the Houthi Army said today that the Arab coalition has carried out 38 bombings in the last 24 hours in the country, twelve of them in Al Hudeida, in statements quoted by the official agency SABA.
In addition, according to the source, government forces have fired more than 80 shells at area Kilo 16 and the Siete de Julio neighborhood, both in the east of the city.
After a week of negotiations, the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels signed a preliminary agreement on Thursday to establish an immediate ceasefire in Al-Hudeida, a city of 600,000 inhabitants that has been besieged by Yemeni and Emirati forces since last June.
The agreement, which will be implemented in phases, provides for the withdrawal of all military forces from the city within 21 days after the implementation of the ceasefire.
The first point to be applied, in a period of two weeks, is the withdrawal of troops from the humanitarian facilities and the port of the city, which will be administered by the UN.
The UN envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, yesterday asked the Security Council to put in place a "strong" mechanism to supervise the ceasefire.
According to the diplomat, the relevant departments of the UN are working to plan this mechanism, pending a decision by the Security Council.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), main supporters of the Yemeni Government, and Iran, allied with the Houthis, have positively received the agreements of Sweden in the negotiations mediated by the UN.
The war in Yemen began at the end of 2014, when the Houthis took control of Sana'a, and became widespread in March 2015 with the intervention of an Arab coalition, which has caused the most serious humanitarian crisis in the world, according to the UN
