UNITED NATIONS, United States: The UN Security Council voted Tuesday to terminate a mission that tried to enforce a ceasefire in war-torn Yemen’s port city of Hodeida.
“Houthi obstructionism has left the mission without a purpose, and it has to close,” said Tammy Bruce of the US delegation, one of 13 on the 15 member council to support ending the mission’s mandate.
The UN mission is now scheduled to conclude in two months.
Yemen’s internationally recognized government is a patchwork of groups held together by their opposition to the Iran-backed Houthis, who ousted them from the capital Sanaa in 2014 and now rule much of the country’s north. They also hold Hodeida.
The Houthis have been at war with the government, backed by a Saudi-led coalition since 2015, in a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and triggered a major humanitarian crisis.
Since 2021 the Houthis have periodically detained UN staffers and still hold some of them.
The resolution approved Tuesday, which was sponsored by Britain, stipulates that the UN mission in Hodeida — known as UNMHA — must close as of March 31. It has been there since 2019.
Russia and China abstained from the vote.
“For six years, UNMHA has served as a critical stabilizing presence” in the region and “actively deterred and prevented a return to full scale conflict,” said Danish representative Christina Markus Lassen.
“The dynamics of the conflict have evolved, and the operating environment has significantly narrowed as UN personnel have become the target of the Houthis’ arbitrary detentions,” Lassen said.
The war in the poorest country in the Arabian peninsula has triggered the worst humanitarian crisis anywhere in the world, the United Nations says.
It expects things to get worse in 2026 as hungry Yemenis find it even harder to get food and international aid drops off.