Yemen truce, prisoner swap timelines pushed back: UN

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SANAA, Jan 28, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The UN envoy for Yemen said Monday the
expected timeline for a truce in the flashpoint city of Hodeida and a
prisoner swap between warring parties had been pushed back.

Envoy Martin Griffiths hosted hard-won peace talks between the Saudi-
backed Yemeni government and rival Iran-aligned Huthi rebels in Sweden last
month.

The two parties, who have been at war for four years, agreed at the talks
to a mass prisoner swap and an ambitious ceasefire pact in Hodeida, the Red
Sea city home to the impoverished country’s most valuable port.

Griffiths, who arrived Monday in Sanaa on his third trip to Yemen this
month, said there had been “changes in timelines” for both deals.

“That momentum is still there, even if we have seen the timelines for
implementation extended, both in Hodeida and with regard to the prisoner
exchange agreement,” he told Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.

“Yet such changes in timelines are expected, in light of the facts that
the timelines were rather ambitious and we are dealing with a complex
situation on the ground.”

Griffiths also confirmed reports retired Dutch general Patrick Cammaert,
who heads a monitoring team tasked with overseeing the Hodeida truce, would
be replaced. Cammaert arrived Saturday in Yemen.

“General Cammaert’s plan was to stay in Yemen for a rather short period of
time to… lay the ground for establishing the Hodeida mission,” he said.

“All the speculations about other reasons for General Patrick’s departure
are not accurate.”

The Huthis, who control Hodeida, have accused Cammaert of not being up to
the task and of pursuing “other agendas”.

Hodeida was for months the main front line in the Yemen war after
government forces supported by Saudi Arabia and its allies launched an
offensive to capture it in June.

But a precarious calm has largely held in the city since the ceasefire
agreement came into force on December 18.

The Hodeida agreement stipulates a full ceasefire, followed by the
withdrawal and redeployment of rival forces from the city — two clauses that
have yet to be fulfilled.

The Yemen conflict has killed some 10,000 people since a Saudi-led
military coalition intervened in support of the beleaguered government in
March 2015, according to the World Health Organization.

Human rights groups say the real death toll could be five times as high.

The war has pushed 14 million Yemenis to the brink of famine in what the
United Nations describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.