Thursday 01 June 2023 - 10:32:03 pm
Fri 14-04-2017 01:19 AM
ADEN, 13th April, 2017 (WAM) -- The Yemeni government today criticised a United Nations report on the rebel-held strategic Red Sea port of Hodeidah saying it contains "untrue and unrealistic information".
The press statement issued by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and international sanctions, Idriss Jazairy, was not based on true and realistic information, said Abdul Raqeeb Fateh, Yemen's Local Administration Minister and chairman of the Supreme Relief Committee, in a statement carried by the official Yemeni news agency. "The humanitarian disaster was inflicted on Yemen by the coup d'etat that was carried out by the rebel Houthi group and their ally, the now-deposed president Ali Abdullah Saleh, against the Yemeni legitimate government."
"The rebel militias continue to block food aid convoys from entering several Yemeni governorates and has been besieging Taiz city for more than one and a half year, and have recently seized 223 aid convoys and 63 ships carrying humanitarian aid supplies and used them to back their war effort," he said.
He further stressed that the Arab Coalition's oversight on the seaport was in implementation of relevant international resolutions on the territorial waters of states as the rebels continue to use the port to smuggle arms and military equipment.
He urged the United Nations to force the rebels to end their occupation of airports in Taiz and Hodeidah.
In Taiz, the rebels block efforts to rescue wounded people in Taiz and deliver relief supplies to Hodeidah where people are facing famine, Fateh stressed, while pointing out that the rebels also use Sana'a International Airport to smuggle arms and militants.
