The United Nations’ special envoy to Yemen said yesterday he wanted to prevent any attack on the Houthi-held Red Sea port of Hodeidah and also called for the central bank’s independence to be maintained to allow it to pay salaries on both sides of the conflict.
Both aims have been the main conditions set by the Houthi group controlling the capital Sanaa for holding talks aimed at reaching a political settlement of the conflict.
Hodeidah port and province is also controlled by the Iran-aligned Houthis and has been the entry point for 70% of Yemen’s food supplies as well as humanitarian aid.
“The first issue that I came for is to try to avoid in every possible way, the idea of a military operation on Houdeidah,” the UN envoy, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, told reporters after his arrival at Sanaa airport.
Aid groups and humanitarian organisations have been saying that a military operation there would put millions of civilians at risk.
The International Rescue Committee has said any attack targeting the port would disrupt port facilities and “have a catastrophic impact on the people of Yemen.”
“You all know that the cholera epidemic has increased, reaching more than 25,000 cases and there have been many deaths in less than two weeks,” Ould Cheikh Ahmed said. 
“The central bank must remain independent and must belong to all the Yemeni people and salaries (must) reach all Yemenis,” he added.
The country has been torn apart by more than two years of civil war that pits the Houthi group against the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which is backed by a coalition.

Cholera kills 315 in Yemen in less than month: WHO
Cholera has killed 315 people in Yemen in under a month, the World Health Organisation has said, as another aid organisation warned yesterday the outbreak could become a “full-blown epidemic”. The WHO has recorded another 29,300 suspected cases of cholera in 19 provinces across the country from April 27 to Sunday, it said on Twitter. “Cholera continues to spread in Yemen,” it said. Save the Children yesterday warned that, at the current rate, more than 65,000 cases of cholera are expected by the end of June.




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