Yemen takes urgent actions to relieve displaced in Saada

SANA'A, Aug. 21 (Saba)- A Ministerial Committee has approved a urgent plan to provide all services to displaced people affected by the fighting between the Yemeni army and a rebel group in the northern Yemeni province of Saada.

The committee, responsible for receipting and accommodating the displaced in Saada, offered YR 30 million to the local authorities of neighbouring Hajjah province, southwest of Saada, to arrange camps of families displacing from the most war-affected districts of Saada.

Tens of thousands of Yemenis from various districts in Saada fled their homes as renewed clashes between the government troops and the al-Houthi rebels escalated over the past ten days.

The committee also called on the government-run Economic Institution to provide urgent requirements and needs to the camps of the displaced.

During its meeting in Hajjah chaired by Health Minister Abdul-Karim Rasa'a, the committee reviewed and discussed the tasks and duties of various official bodies and relevant ministries as well as international organizations, including UNICEF, WHO, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), World Food Program and the UN Refugees Agency (UNHCR) according to their capacities for offering food and medical assistances to the camps of the displaced.

Over the past days, a number of international humanitarian organizations, including ICRC, the UN Food & Agricultural Organization, UNHCR and Medicines Sans Frontiers, sent teams to the restive province but worsening security there has limited their effectiveness.

According to Saada Governor Hassan Manaa, 15 Yemeni Red Crescent Society (YRCS) aid workers, including doctors and nurses, were kidnapped last week by the al-Houthi rebel group from a camp in the province.

Manaa said local authorities were doing their best to facilitate aid agencies’ access to the displaced families.

But the fighting has shown no signs of letting up. The Yemeni government has offered the al-Houthi rebels a ceasefire on condition that they withdrew from conflict areas, removed their checkpoints and returned kidnapped foreigners, among other issues. The rebels rejected the offer and denied holding any kidnapped civilians.

The sixth war between the Yemeni army and the al-Houthi rebels broke out on 12 August after a year-old truce collapsed.

The government has been engaged in an on-off war with the al-Houthi rebels for the best part of five years. The new offensive is significant escalation in the government’s war against the rebels, with the state’s iron-fist approach.

In Hajjah, the authorities have set up a transit area between the towns of Haradh and Malaheet as thousands of camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) are scattered along the road.

UNHCR has been in Hajjah since last week to quickly assess the situation. It found many families fled, abandoning homes or previous displacement areas, to join refugees further south. Yemen informed UNHCR it plans to open a camp in the area to accommodate arriving IDPs.

UNHCR, together with other agencies, is undertaking several other assessment missions to areas of displacement including Hajjah, Amran, and Jawf provinces.

The al-Houthi group has killed more than 330 people, including 28 women and 10 children, and injured about 200 others last year in Saada. The al-Houthi followers' crimes have been bloodily raised in the province.

Since the fighting erupted in 2004, thousands of Yemenis, including soldiers and insurgents, have been killed in Saada, which lies close to border with Saudi Arabia, after the rebel group was founded by rebel leader Hussein al-Houthi.

Hussein, the eldest brother of the current group leader Abdul-Malik, was killed by the army in September 2004.

The Yemeni government accuses the al-Houthi group of trying to reinstall the rule of imams, which was toppled by a republican revolution in northern Yemen in 1962.

Sunni Muslims are about 55 percent of Yemen's population of 23 million people and reside in the coastal plains and southwestern part of the country while Shiites are about 42 percent of the population and live in the highlands.

There are also a small numbers of Jews, Christians, and Hindus present.

North Yemen gained its independent from the Ottoman Empire in 1918 and in 1967, the British withdrew from what would become South Yemen.

In 1990, the two countries formally unified as the Republic of Yemen.

YA