The UN brokered ceasefire in Yemen, which began Friday night and was supposed to last through the week is in ruins tonight, after 45 people were killed in a flurry of Saudi airstrikes and an offensive by Hadi government forces in the city of Aden.
Saudi officials shrugged off the reports of their violations, noting they’d never directly agreed to the ceasefire to begin with. This is true, indeed, as the UN had reported the Hadi forces and the Houthi rebels were the ones to agree to the truce. Hadi officials did not address their involvement.
10 people were reported killed in a series of Saudi airstrikes around Yemen, while the other 35 were killed in the Hadi offensive backed by those airstrikes, with 30 of the slain Houthis and the other five on the Hadi side. The fighting was in a suburb of Aden, which the Hadi forces seized.
Though many parts of the country were comparatively calm, at least compared to the days ahead of the ceasefire, it’s clearly not holding, and it should be expected that the Houthis will start launching counter-attacks, particularly in Aden. In the meantime, locals reported no uptick in aid ships arriving, which was supposed to be the whole point of the illusory truce.