Merve Gül Aydoğan Ağlarcı
15 August 2024•Update: 15 August 2024
HAMILTON, Canada
The UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg on Thursday warned of escalating conflict in Yemen and its growing entanglement with broader Middle Eastern tensions.
"The Middle East is currently holding its breath, and I sincerely hope that the escalatory trajectory that we have experienced in the past months can be reversed," Grundberg told the Security Council.
He highlighted how the conflict, which initially erupted between Israel and the Gaza Strip last October, has spilled into Yemen, drawing the country deeper into regional turmoil.
Despite efforts to shield Yemen from escalation, Grundberg noted that "Ansar Allah continues to attack ships in the Red Sea, and the US and the UK have continued their strikes on military targets in Ansar Allah-controlled territory."
Ansar Allah is the de facto Houthi authority in Yemen.
The envoy warned that the situation, which has persisted for over eight months, "is not sustainable."
Emphasizing the need to address the "real and urgent challenges inside Yemen," which have been exacerbated by the regional conflict, he told the Council that "addressing the decade-long conflict in Yemen continues to be at the center of my work."
The conflict "has claimed hundreds of thousands of victims, has weakened Yemen's social fabric, and has undermined the delivery of public services," he said.
Grundberg reaffirmed his commitment to the peace process and urged the Council to maintain its support his "consistent and unified messaging on the importance of a political process and a cease-fire, as well as your continued advocacy for the release of UN personnel, is all the more crucial during these turbulent times."
Lisa Doughten, head of the UN Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs' Humanitarian Financing and Resource Mobilization Division, told the Council that the Houthi's "arbitrary detention" of UN personnel, as well as other international and national NGO staff and civil society representatives is "completely unacceptable."
She demanded their immediate release as she noted the UN's efforts to "secure their release with determination until they are all freed."
"We urge all member states to exert any influence and leverage they have in support of these efforts," Doughten added.
Emphasizing the "lack of adequate funding," Doughten stressed that under-funding issues force aid workers "to make difficult decisions about which vulnerable families and communities would receive support."
She also warned that "rates of severe food deprivation in areas controlled by the Houthi de facto authorities have more than doubled from 17% to 36% compared with the same time last year."
Russian envoy Dmitry Polyanskiy told the Council that Yemen is "on the brink of life and death," and it is becoming excessively linked with regional turbulence.
Saying that the actions of Ansar Allah "reflect the level of frustration in the region," he said Israel's policy of "trying to wipe the Gaza Strip off from the face of the earth is putting a serious threat to the lives of almost 2 million people who lived there."
"The inaction of the Security Council is only facilitating this conflagration of this mood on the Arab Street and supporting the stance of the Houthis," he added.
Polyanskiy emphasized that a cease-fire in Gaza and returning "the Middle East settlement back under the UN auspices and into the well-known treaty and legal basis set by the decisions of the UN Security Council" will end the "vicious cycle" of crises.
Similarly, China's envoy to the UN Geng Shuang expressed his country's "serious concern" over the detention of UN personnel and assets while emphasizing that the situation is "closely related to the Gaza conflict."
"The slow and difficult process to achieve cease-fire in Gaza has negative spillover effects that exacerbate regional turmoil," he said, urging an immediate implementation of Security Council resolutions.
