UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg said on Friday that the latest attacks in Marib and Hadramawt, together with renewed attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, had left Yemen at its greatest risk of renewed large-scale conflict since the UN-brokered truce in April 2022.
He urged all sides to exercise maximum restraint and engage in UN-led negotiations, warning that the violence risked drawing Yemen deeper into a wider regional confrontation.
The UN Security Council also expressed concern on Friday at the heightened tensions in Yemen, saying recent actions threatened regional security and navigational rights and freedoms, risked further escalation and undermined efforts to secure peace. It urged the Houthis to refrain from escalation and encouraged the “use of existing channels of dialogue” to reduce tensions.
The Houthis declared a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea last month in response to what they described as a Saudi siege of Yemen, an allegation Riyadh denies.
Saudi Arabia has led a military coalition backing Yemen’s internationally recognised government since 2015, after the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014. The war has devastated Yemen and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The 2022 truce had halted offensive military operations inside Yemen and across its borders and led to a sharp reduction in fighting. The truce was twice extended before formally expiring in October that year, but large-scale hostilities did not immediately resume, and Yemen entered a period of relative calm.
