UN chief calls for 2-week pause in Yemen war during Ramadan
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for a two-week humanitarian pause in war-ravaged Yemen during the fasting month of Ramadan.
“I hope this week starts the beginning of the end of the fighting,” Ban stated on Monday at the opening session of UN-sponsored peace talks on the Yemeni crisis in Geneva, Switzerland.
“Ramadan begins in two days,” he said, adding that the holy Muslim month should be a period for “harmony, peace and reconciliation.”
“I have emphasized the importance of another humanitarian pause for two weeks,” Ban added.
Underscoring the need for immediate action in Yemen, he said, “The ticking clock is not a time piece, it is a time bomb,” calling on all parties to reach agreement on a “comprehensive and lasting” ceasefire.
Representatives from Yemeni political factions, including a delegation representing Yemen’s Ansarullah movement, and former regime officials were expected to take part in the talks. However, the delegations of various Yemeni parties have reportedly been held up in Djibouti as Egypt, under Saudi pressure, denied their plane entry into its airspace.
Announcing the start of “preliminary inclusive consultations” in Geneva, the UN’s peace envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed issued a statement before the talks that called on “Yemen’s political actors to participate in these consultations in good faith and without preconditions, and in a climate of trust and mutual respect.”
The talks come as Saudi Arabia presses ahead with its military aggression against the Yemeni people, which started on March 26.
On Sunday, Saudi fighter jets targeted several positions in the northern province of Jawf and the northwestern province of Hajjah. According to official figures, the Sunday attacks killed 18 people and wounded dozens more in al-Hazm, the capital of the northern province of al-Jawf.
Saudi warplanes also targeted residential areas south of the Yemeni southwestern province of Ta’izz, killing 17 people, including five women.
The World Health Organization says at least 2,600 people have been killed and 11,000 others injured due to the conflict in Yemen since March 19.
MFB/HJL/HRB
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