12/17
A UN monitoring mission will be sent to al-Hudaydah this week to oversee the fragile ceasefire that was negotiated last week.
The Office of the Special Envoy to Yemen has published the agreement reached on the release and exchange of all prisoners.
Canadian PM Justin Trudeau has signalled that Canada will be reconsidering its current arms export agreements with Saudi Arabia, primarily looking to terminate its planned delivery of armored vehicles to Riyadh.
12/18
A recent article in The New York Times sheds light on humanitarian concerns at sea that have been overlooked due to the focus on air-to-ground strikes.
The Yemeni government has criticized Martin Griffiths for his briefing on the status of recent negotiations that took place in Sweden. Their disapproval stems from Griffiths’ attention to the Yemeni government’s hesitation to sign the Stockholm agreement, without acknowledging the Houthis’ rejection of an earlier economic proposal.
A Yemeni woman has been granted a waiver to visit her dying child who is on life support in a hospital in California. While her husband and son are US citizens, she is not and was therefore banned from entering the United States due to the Trump administration’s travel ban, which faces a fresh lawsuit from immigration advocates.
12/19
The International Crisis Group’s senior analyst Peter Salisbury provides an informative Q&A piece regarding the ceasefire here.
The AP interviewed 18 former child soldiers and reported on their experiences fighting for the Houthis, who have acknowledged inducting 18,000 child soldiers into their army since 2014.
12/20
A Reuters report highlights the difficulties of financing food imports in Yemen, when the central bank has been divided in the course of the war.
Deutsche Welle has released an English-language version of a documentary on western-manufactured arms sold to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that have wound up in the hands of Yemeni militias. The film, produced by an Arab investigative journalism organization, exposes evidence of German and Belgian arms, and US- and UK-made armored vehicles, in the hands of the AQAP-linked Abu al-Abbas Brigades. Some arms sold to Saudi Arabia have even ended up in the possession of Houthi fighters.
The US is pushing for condemnation of Iran to be included in the UN draft resolution regarding the ceasefire deal for al-Hudaydah. Russia has rejected including such language in the resolution, which is likely to be adopted this week.
The Pentagon has acknowledged killing more than twice the number of people it previously admitted to during Trump’s first Special Operations raid in Yemen on January 20, 2017. Initially, the report estimated 14 AQAP members were killed. However, according to a report obtained by The Intercept under FOIA, it shows 35 “enemy killed in action” and “minimal” civilian casualties. This contradicts the reporting from the ground at the time, which indicated that more than 20 civilians had been killed, including at least 6 women and 10 children.
12/21
An article in The Guardian details how the strategies used by the UAE in Yemen have helped them profit and project power throughout the region.