UN's Yemen Envoy Lands in Sanaa ahead of Rebel Evacuation
إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية
The UN's Yemen envoy Martin Griffiths landed at Sanaa international airport Monday for talks with Huthi rebels ahead of planned peace talks in Sweden this month.
An AFP photographer at the airport said Griffiths did not take questions on arrival.
Fifty wounded Huthis will also be evacuated from rebel-held Sanaa for medical treatment Monday, the Saudi-led military coalition allied with Yemen's government announced.
The evacuation on a UN chartered plane marks a key step in kickstarting stalled negotiations, as world powers press for an end to the four-year conflict that has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine.
The plane will transport 50 rebels, 50 "escorts", three Yemeni doctors and one UN doctor to the Omani capital Muscat.
International pressure has mounted in recent weeks to reach a breakthrough in the Yemen war, which pits the Iran-backed Huthis against the Saudi-led coalition.
War coupled with economic collapse has put nearly 14 million Yemenis -- half the country's population -- at risk of famine, according to UN agencies.
The World Health Organization estimates nearly 10,000 people have been killed since Saudi Arabia and its allies joined the Yemen war in 2015, aiming to bolster government's standing.
Rights groups fear the toll could be much higher.
04 December 2018, 16:04
00
The evacuation will also involve two dozen UN officials, whose combined per diem payments of 24,000 dollars (daily) extended for months now have exhausted the UN budget for peace-making in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. The Sanaa hospitality industry's Chamber of Commerce has requested the intervention of Iran to save its fledgling luxury resort, based out of prefab hotel rooms renting for a thousand dollars a night. Iran has denied all knowledge of the UN's activities in Yemen, saying that its Revolutionary Guard proxy-operative-linked troops, numbering some two hundred thousand, "just sleep in their sleeping bags on the ground, like normal proxy-operative-linked troops".
