Gas ship allowed into Yemen’s Hodeidah port as part of truce

Sanaa, May 9 (SocialNews.XYZ) The Houthi militia have announced that a ship carrying gas was allowed to enter Yemen's blockaded Red Sea port of Hodeidah as part of the ongoing truce between the country's warring sides.

The Saudi-led coalition forces in Yemen agreed to grant the ship access to the port after having withheld it for more than a week, Xinhua news agency quoted the Houthi-run al-Masirah TV as saying.

Last week, the Houthi rebels accused the coalition of having been holding the ship since April 27 despite permission granted by the UN.

So far, several fuel ships have arrived at Hodeidah's port since a UN-brokered two-month truce entered into force on April 2, the Houthi-run TV said.

The truce between the rebels and the coalition-backed Yemeni government includes allowing the entry of 18 fuel ships into Hodeidah; two commercial flights a week to and from the Houthi-controlled Sanaa airport; and humanitarian aid access to the government-held Taiz city.

The truce has been largely held by the warring sides but they have yet to reach a final agreement on resuming commercial flights in the Sanaa airport.

Yemen has been mired in a civil war since late 2014 when the Iran-backed Houthi militia seized control of several northern provinces and forced the Saudi-backed government out of the capital Sanaa.

The war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 4 million, and pushed the population to the brink of starvation.

Source: IANS