The United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Yemen urged a Saudi-led coalition to ease its inspections of Yemen-bound cargo to speed up imports of vital goods which are still being held up despite a humanitarian truce.
As electricity is lacking across Yemen, fuel is critical to run generators in hospitals, pumps for the water and sanitation system, and the communications grid, Johannes van der Klaauw told a U.N. briefing in Geneva via audio link from Sanaa.
The tightly enforced inspection regime has hindered delivery of urgent humanitarian supplies to Yemen, while roadblocks and continued sporadic fighting were still holding up distribution within the country, van de Klaauw said.
"The arms embargo and its inspection regime results in commercial goods, be it by air or ship, no longer reaching the country," he said. Inspections should be speeded up so that imports of commercial and humanitarian goods, including fuel, "food and other life-sustaining necessities can resume".
After more than a month of air strikes by a Saudi-led coalition against an Iranian-allied militia that has seized much of Yemen, a five-day humanitarian truce was declared but is now half-way over. The aim is to get supplies to 2.5 million Yemenis deprived of food, fuel and medicine.
"At the moment the pause is globally holding, though I have to say every day we see skirmishes, localized and of short duration, but we still see that there is military activity," van der Klaauw said, citing clashes in Aden and Taiz.
"We also face the roadblocks which prevent not only civilians from moving during this pause but also us from providing essential aid."
He called on all parties to the conflict to abide by pledges of safe passage for humanitarian staff and supplies. "We hope that the pause can be extended, of course in the end it should result in a ceasefire and a political agreement," he said.
The United Nations has been able to import 430,000 liters of fuel for humanitarian operations in the past week - roughly one-tenth of monthly needs, said Trond Jensen, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Yemen.
"It has been difficult to reach our warehouses. I know there has been medical supplies stuck in Aden, 50 tonnes of it at least, there has been food and other supplies that we haven't been able to access," Jensen said.
Yemen is the latest theater in Shi'ite Muslim Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia's tussle for power across the Middle East, which has played out along largely sectarian lines but has not yet led to direct confrontation between the Gulf powers.
REUTERS