UN envoy in Yemen for Hodeida crisis talks

The UN envoy for Yemen held emergency talks in rebel-controlled capital Sanaa on Saturday over the key aid port of Hodeida, where a regional coalition is battling Huthi rebel fighters.

Martin Griffiths was believed to be pushing a deal for rebel leaders to cede control of the Red Sea port to a UN-supervised committee and halt heavy clashes against advancing government troops backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The envoy did not make any statement on his arrival at Sanaa international airport.

UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash on Twitter backed "the envoy's efforts to facilitate the safe handover of Hodeida to the legitimate Yemeni Government".

"The people of Hodeida urgently want to be liberated. The coalition will continue with its military and humanitarian preparations to achieve this urgent result," Gargash wrote.

More than 70 per cent of Yemeni imports pass through Hodeida's docks and the fighting has raised UN fears of humanitarian catastrophe in a country already teetering on the brink of famine.

Yemen's government and its allies launched their offensive on Wednesday, since when at least 139 combatants have been killed, according to medical and military sources.

The Shiite Huthi rebels have controlled the Hodeida region with its population of some 600,000 people since 2014.

Earlier this year, the Saudi-led coalition imposed a near-total blockade on the city's port alleging it was being used as a conduit for arms smuggling to the rebels by its regional arch rival Iran.

The capture of Hodeida would be the coalition's biggest victory of the war so far, and rebel leader Abdel Malek al-Huthi on Thursday called on his forces to put up fierce resistance and turn the region into a quagmire for coalition troops.

Source: AFP