Spotlight: Yemen risks of division as fights rage on despite new humanitarian truce

Heavy clashes raged in Yemen's southern provinces on Monday, hours after a fragile five-day humanitarian cease-fire declared by the Saudi-led Arab coalition came into effect.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday welcomed the announcement by the Saudi-led coalition of a unilateral humanitarian pause in Yemen. He urged the Houthis, the General People's Congress and all other parties to agree to and maintain the humanitarian pause "for the sake of all the Yemeni people," calling on all to act in good faith throughout the truce.

Observers said division is looming as four months of civil war and regional power struggle nearly tore apart one of the most impoverished countries in the region.

FAILTURE OF TRUCE

Hours after the truce came into effect, battles between the Shiite Houthi group backed by forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh and Gulf-backed fighters intensified in the southern provinces of Taiz, Lahj, al-Dhalee and Marib.

Residents in capital Sanaa said they heard loud sound of anti-aircraft artillery and warplanes on Monday morning.

Military sources said warplanes of the coalition mistakenly hit Gulf-backed forces in Balah area in the southern Lahj province on Monday afternoon who were advancing to besiege Shiite Houthi militia in the al-Anad air force base, killing at least 15 and wounding up to 50 others.

It is not the first time that such short humanitarian truce are announced, yet the previous ones on July 10 and May 12 were proven to be only shaky as no side truly laid down their arms and honored the agreement. The warring sides always traded accusations of breaching the truce.

The Saudi-led coalition declared the truce after it achieved a breakthrough this week to take full control of the southern port city of Aden.

Yemeni President Abd-Rabbo Mansour Hadi was ousted by the Shiite Houthi group who had controlled the capital Sanaa since September. He fled to Aden, the temporary capital as he declared, in late February after weeks of house arrest, and has been taking refuge with his cabinet in the Saudi capital of Riyadh since March 26 when the Houthis were besieging Aden city.

Goverment sources said the embattled president planned to move his cabinet back to Aden after safety assessment.

RISK OF DIVISION

Observers said no warring sides could have an outright win as the civil war could not be solved through military operations, and yet no one demonstrated faith in peace talks.

Nabil Albukiri, head of the Arab center for political studies and development in Sanaa, said "what we all should understand is that a united Yemen and retaking power and from the Houthis are strategic goals of the Saudi-led coalition."

Meanwhile, the Houthi group has not admitted its defeat in Aden. It is sending reinforcements into neighboring Lahj and Taiz province coinciding with the ongoing battles in other parts of the country.

Yemen has seen risks of division since the 1994 civil war when the north defeated the south that had Aden city as its capital. Pro-separatism movements spread quickly in the southern regions, who claimed discrimination in favor of the north in the allocation of government resources and jobs. The Southern Movement, the strongest one that calls for separation of the south, has joined the Gulf-back fighters to resist the Shiite Houthis from the country's far north.

Nourhan al-Sheikh, professor of political sciences at Cairo University, said division of Yemen is not in the interest of Saudi Arabia as it will be a thorn in the back of the kingdom for which the Houthis represent the project of a Shiite Yemen."

She said that the division could be a "de facto" development that might be later imposed on the ground, yet the Riyadh-led coalition would then treat the Houthis in the north as rebels that must be eliminated.

REGIONAL POWER STRUGGLE

Since the beginning of the civil war, Iran was accused by the GCC and Yemeni government of arming the Shiite Houthi group. However, Tehran denied such charges and only admitted its humanitarian assistance to the Arab country.

Nabil Albukiri said all GCC states especially Saudi Arabia care very much about Yemen's unity and stability because chaos and violence in their neighbor pose direct threats to their interests.

Angered by the recently-reached nuclear deal between Iran and the United States, Saudi Arabia is concerned about greater influence of Iran in the region and its attempts to turn Yemen into a Shiite state.

"Saudi Arabia and other eight Arab countries in the coalition realize the dangers of separation of Yemen at the moment," he said.

Yemen is considered as the southern gate for oil-rich Saudi-Arabia, so a pro-Gulf Yemen serves the best interest of the kingdom in particular and for the region in a whole, experts said.

Thus, Saudi Arabia is currently leading an Arab coalition that has been launching air strikes since late March against the Houthi fighters in favor of Hadi, who fled and sought refuge in Riyadh.

Yaseen Al-Tamimi, a political analyst and writer in Sanaa, said the military operations of the Saudi-led coalition will not stop until they think Iran can no longer threaten security of the GCC through heavily armed militia.

HUMANITARIAN DISASTER

The Saudi-led coalition said Saturday that the truce was announced at the request of Yemeni President Hadi to deliver aid in the country.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Sunday that he "urges all parties to facilitate the urgent delivery of humanitarian assistance to all parts of Yemen, as well as rapid, safe, and unhindered access for humanitarian actors to reach people in need of humanitarian assistance, including medical assistance."

Announcement of the five-day ceasefire pause came as the UN World Food Program said its first ship since March carrying aid reached on July 21 in the port of Aden.

Meanwhile, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that at least 165 civilians, including 53 children and 23 women, were killed between July 3 and 15, and another 210 were injured during this period.

"The majority of the casualties are reported to have been caused by air strikes, but civilians are also regularly being injured and killed by mortar fire and in street fighting," OHCHR Spokesperson Rupert Colville told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland.

"The total death toll since March 26 is now at least 1,693 civilians, with another 3,829 injured," Colville said.

A UN report said earlier that 21 million Yemenis, about 80 percent of the country's population, are in urgent need of aid.

The International Committee of the Red Cross also warned the recent spike in hostilities including the intense ground fighting which has further exacerbated the suffering of the civilian population.

"The suffering of the civilian population has reached unprecedented levels. More than one hundred days into the crisis, severe shortages of water, food and fuel continue across the country as well as airstrikes and ground fighting," Antoine Grand, head of the ICRC delegation in Yemen, said in a statement on Friday.

The ICRC calls on all parties to respect and ensure respect for international humanitarian law and ensure that all feasible precautions are taken to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure. Endit