Yemen: UN envoy and other notes

Al Jazeera provides some recent news on Yemen.

1. A UN special envoy arrived in Sanaa, Yemen to talk with the Houthi rebels.

2. The Saudi-UAE-backed government forces are closing in on taking over the port city of Hodeidah (Reuters, via a prior post, uses the spelling of Hodeida). This port is used to bring in supplies to Yemen (food, etc), but is also considered the way that Iran supplies the rebels with weapons.

3. Here's an interesting history lesson:

With logistical support from the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have carried out attacks in Yemen since March 2015, in an attempt to reinstate the internationally recognised government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. In 2014, Hadi and his forces were overrun by the Houthi rebels who took over much of the country, including Sanaa. Since then, they have recaptured some of the territory previously lost.



It looks like the UN is backing governments in Yemen and Libya that are in significant trouble. It also is interesting that the UN is technically on the same side as Saudi Arabia and against Iran.

4. Though the world rightly condemned the Saudi-led coalition attack on the school bus, it should be noted that the Houthi aren't without sin themselves:

A report last month by a team of UN-mandated investigators concluded there were "reasonable grounds" to believe all parties in Yemen's war had "committed a substantial number of violations of international humanitarian law".

Regarding the school bus attack, the UK Telegraph reports:

The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen has admitted that an airstrike that struck a school bus last month, killing dozens of civilians, was unjustified . . .The coalition claimed it had intelligence saying Houthi leaders were on the bus and using the children as human shields, making the bus a legitimate military target.

So the excuse is that rebel leaders were on the school bus, using children as human shields. That doesn't exactly sound like a good excuse.