Yemen’s special envoy to the United Nations called on support from the international community after the Iran-backed Houthi militant group seized control of the Red Sea port city of Mokha.
“This renewed war should alarm us all,” Hans Grundberg, the U.N. special envoy for Yemen, warned at an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Thursday.
“It effectively marks the end of the relative calm that Yemen has experienced for over four years since the U.N.-brokered truce,” Grundberg said.
He called on the international community to address this “new and more dangerous phase – one whose consequences, if left unchecked, will not stay within Yemen’s borders.”
The Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have entered Yemen’s strategic Red Sea port city of Mokha, two local residents told The Associated Press on Thursday.
A Yemeni military source told the AFP news agency earlier on Thursday that the Houthis had taken the city. Four government military sources made the same assertion to the Reuters news agency.
Yemen’s U.N. Ambassador Abdullah Al-Saadi said a single Yemen state with a monopoly on weapons that has sovereignty throughout the country, which the government is seeking, is “a fundamental guarantee” for security for Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the region.
He called on the Security Council to condemn the Houthis’ military escalation and to implement measures “prohibiting the supply of arms, components, technology, and military expertise to the militia” which are fueling the conflict.
Saudi U.N. Ambassador Abdulaziz Alwasil said that the kingdom remains supportive of peace in Yemen but that it would “take all measures necessary to deter Houthi attacks.”
Alwasil warned that “the kingdom’s commitment to de-escalation and to supporting a political solution must not be allowed to become an opportunity that this militia exploits to continue its attacks and to threaten the security of the kingdom and the region.”
CBS/AP
