Aden (Yemen): UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg on Monday expressed deep concern over recent attacks by the Houthi group on the Yemeni government-held city of Mocha, warning that the military escalation could push Yemen back toward full-scale conflict.
The attacks on Mocha reportedly caused civilian and military casualties and damaged infrastructure, including facilities at the city’s port, Grundberg said in a statement.
He said the attacks came amid “the most significant intensification of military activity” since a UN-brokered truce took effect in April 2022, sharply increasing the risk of renewed large-scale conflict in Yemen, Xinhua News Agency reported.
The UN envoy called on the parties to exercise “maximum restraint” and work with his office on concrete measures to de-escalate tensions and preserve the relative calm achieved following the 2022 truce.
At least eight people were killed on Sunday as Yemen’s Houthi group launched a wave of missile and drone attacks on the Red Sea port city of Mocha and other government-held areas along the country’s western coast, local sources said.
A local medical source said on condition of anonymity that four civilians and four government military personnel were killed and about 32 other people wounded in Houthi strikes on government-held Mocha Port and surrounding areas in southwestern Taiz province.
Abdulmalik al-Sharabi, the port’s director, said in a press statement that the Houthis launched dozens of drones at the facility, with about 25 striking economic facilities, employee housing and a customs hangar.
Yemen’s Transport Ministry said that ballistic missiles and drones caused “severe damage” to the port’s infrastructure, and that it has raised preparedness levels and reinforced emergency measures at ports, airports and land crossings in government-held areas.
Yemen has been mired in conflict since late 2014, when the Houthis seized much of northern Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, prompting a Saudi-led coalition to intervene in 2015 in support of the internationally recognised Yemeni government.
The UN-brokered truce took effect in April 2022 and expired in October that year without a formal extension, but a fragile de facto ceasefire had largely held for years, significantly reducing large-scale hostilities until the recent escalation.
(IANS)
