UK to urge United Nations Security Council to act on Yemen

London, November 5: Britain has announced that it was urging United Nations Security Council partners to act over the humanitarian crisis in Yemen; saying there now appears to be a window for a peace deal.

 

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt agreed with the UN's Yemen envoy Martin Griffiths that the time was right for the Council to act to bolster the UN-led process. According to a Foreign Office statement, Mr Hunt said, Britain will use all its influence to push for such an approach. He said, there was a small but real chance that a cessation of hostilities could alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had called for a halt to violence in Yemen to pull the country back from a precipice and build momentum toward talks on ending the war.

According to UNICEF, almost 2 million Yemeni children under the age of five suffer from acute malnutrition, and the lives of 400,000 severely affected children are under threat.

Yemen, one of the poorest Arab countries, is locked in a nearly four-year-old war that pits Iran-aligned Houthi rebels against the government backed by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the West. The conflict has killed at least 10,000 people and caused the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.