With just two weeks left in a two-month cease-fire in Yemen, the U.N. envoy to the war-torn country said Tuesday that talks with the government and Houthi rebels are going on right now and he hopes the truce will be extended.
But Hans Grundberg was wary of making any prediction, saying that agreement on an extension would depend on the talks that he and his office are having with the warring parties.
“During these past six weeks we have seen considerable positive impact on the daily lives of many Yemenis,” he told reporters after a closed briefing to the U.N. Security Council. “First, and most importantly, the truce is holding in military terms.”
The two-month truce is the first nationwide cease-fire in six years in Yemen’s civil war, which erupted in 2014. That year, the Iranian-backed Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, and forced the internationally recognized government into exile. A Saudi-led coalition entered the war in early 2015 to try to restore the government to power.
The conflict created one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world while becoming a regional proxy war in recent years. More than 150,000 people have been killed, including over 14,500 civilians.