UN envoy calls for extension of Yemen armistice

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The United Nations special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, called on Tuesday for extending the armistice between the Saudi-led coalition and the Sanaa government, which is set to expire in two weeks. 

At the end of a closed UN Security Council meeting, Grundberg claimed that the renewable two-month truce that went into effect in early April has made a "considerable positive impact on the daily lives of many Yemenis."

"Over the past six weeks, civilian casualties have dropped considerably, fighting has sharply reduced with no aerial attacks from Yemen across its borders and no confirmed airstrikes inside Yemen," he claimed, completely overlooking the Saudi-led violations recorded on a daily basis. 

As part of the truce, the first commercial flight in nearly six years took off on Monday from Yemen's capital, and Grundberg said another flight is scheduled for Wednesday, after months of the Saudi-led coalition sailing any such flights in a blatant violation of the UN-brokered humanitarian truce. 

Saudi coalition violated truce over 5,000 times: Yemeni official

According to a Yemeni official, the Saudi-led coalition troops and its allied militant groups have violated the UN-brokered national truce more than 5,000 times.

At the time in April, the UN envoy to Yemen, Hans Grundberg, announced that "under this truce, all offensive military operations, by land, air, and sea, will cease."

Last month, the operations room monitoring the violations reported that the Saudi-led coalition forces committed 89 violations of the ceasefire in Al-Hudaydah. 

On April 10, the Yemeni military media highlighted that the Saudi coalition committed 1,647 violations of the humanitarian and military armistice agreement within a week of its entry into force.