UN welcomes boost of offloading capacity for aid supplies at Yemeni port

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations has welcomed the arrival of four cranes in the Yemeni Red Sea port of Hudaydah so that the offloading capacity for humanitarian and commercial cargo can be boosted.

"It is obviously a very important development and we've been waiting -- more importantly the people of Yemen have been waiting -- for these cranes for some time," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters. "The problem that we had had is that the facilities in the port did not enable us to offload and absorb a great capacity of ships."

Four mobile cranes purchased by the World Food Programme and funded by the United States have arrived at Hudaydah, said Dujarric.

The cranes, which will be operational immediately, are urgently needed to boost the capacity of Hudaydah Port, which handles around 70 percent of Yemen's imports, including critically needed food and humanitarian supplies.

With each of the mobile cranes able to handle up to 60 tons, they will significantly boost the discharge of humanitarian cargo and other relief items, said Dujarric.

A total of 22 million people in Yemen are in need of humanitarian assistance. Over 70 percent of them live in proximity to the Red Sea ports of Hudaydah and Saleef.

The Saudi-led coalition, which is fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen, sealed off land, sea and air access to Yemen in November 2017 after Houthi rebels launched a missile at the Saudi capital of Riyadh. The missile was intercepted.

The blockade was partially lifted later, but shipment of humanitarian supplies kept being affected.

Yemen has been in civil war since 2015, pitting Houthi forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was killed last month, and forces loyal to the government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. Enditem