{"id":25600,"date":"2018-12-14T22:22:24","date_gmt":"2018-12-14T22:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=25600"},"modified":"2018-12-14T22:22:24","modified_gmt":"2018-12-14T22:22:24","slug":"first-clashes-hit-yemens-hodeidah-since-truce-deal-residents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=25600","title":{"rendered":"First clashes hit Yemen’s Hodeidah since truce deal: residents"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Sporadic clashes broke out on the outskirts of Yemen<\/a>‘s Hodeidah on Friday, the first violence to hit the lifeline port city since a United Nations-brokered ceasefire<\/a> was reached by warring parties, residents said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Residents reported hearing exchange of gunfire and\u00a0sound of missiles in the Houthi-held city,\u00a0on whose outskirts Yemeni forces backed by a Saudi-UAE coalition have massed.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The clashes in Hodeidah, a lifeline for millions of Yemenis facing starvation, came a day after the Houthis and the Saudi-backed government had agreed after a week of consultations in Sweden to cease fighting in the Red Sea city and withdraw their troops.<\/p>\n

It was the first significant breakthrough for UN-led peace efforts to pave the way for political negotiations to end the nearly four-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands of people and pushed Yemen to the brink of famine.<\/p>\n

‘Daunting task’<\/h2>\n

UN envoy Martin Griffiths said at the end of the Sweden talks that both parties would withdraw “within days” from the port, and then from the city.<\/p>\n

International monitors would be deployed and all armed forces would pull back completely within 21 days and a prisoner swap involving some 16,000 prisoners<\/a> is planned.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Griffiths told the UN Security Council that a robust monitoring regime<\/a> was urgently needed in Hodeidah to oversee compliance with the truce.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera’s James Bays, reporting from the UN headquarters in New York, said the organisation is “trying to come up with a monitoring team” for Hodeidah. He added that the UN’s task ahead is “a very, very difficult” and “daunting” one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, has been devastated by a multi-sided conflict<\/a>\u00a0involving local, regional, and international actors.<\/p>\n

The conflict in Yemen began with the 2014 takeover of the capital, Sanaa, by Houthi rebels, who toppled the government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. A Saudi-UAE-led coalition allied with Yemen’s internationally recognised government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015.<\/p>\n

Since then, more than 60,000 people have died, according to rights groups, and the country is on the brink of family.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sporadic clashes broke out on the outskirts of Yemen’s Hodeidah on Friday, the first violence to hit the lifeline port city since a United Nations-brokered ceasefire was reached by warring parties, residents said.\u00a0 Residents reported hearing exchange of gunfire and\u00a0sound of missiles in the Houthi-held city,\u00a0on whose outskirts Yemeni forces backed by a Saudi-UAE coalition…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":25601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}