Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, Red Sea risk regional war, UN Security Council members warn｜Arab News Japan

NEW YORK CITY: Members of the UN Security Council condemned an escalating wave of Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and international shipping. They warned that the threat of Yemen relapsing into full-scale war was at its gravest level in four years, and pressed Iran to end its support for the group.

Briefing the council on Thursday, the UN’s special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, said the country “today faces a more serious risk of return to large-scale conflict than at any point since the 2022 UN-mediated truce.”

As evidence of this he cited intensified fighting on multiple fronts and renewed Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, which the Council has already condemned.

A missile strike on a vessel two days ago killed several members of its crew, he said, noting that tensions had been building since July when an unauthorized flight from Tehran bound for Sanaa prompted airstrikes on Sanaa International Airport, followed by missile attacks on Abha airport and Saudi oil facilities.

Grundberg said the four-year truce, though never formalized into a comprehensive political settlement, had provided Yemenis with “the most sustained respite since the start of the conflict,” but warned that this relative calm “cannot hold indefinitely” absent political progress.

A return to war, he said, would strain a state already fractured by a decade of conflict and an economy with “little margin to absorb another shock.”

He called for an immediate deescalation, a halt to cross-border attacks and threats against international shipping, and protection of freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

The UK’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, Kate Foster, said “reckless Houthi actions,” including drone and missile strikes on Saudi Arabia, attacks on Red Sea shipping, and violations of Yemeni airspace by Iranian aircraft, were driving the escalation, and warned that Iran “must cease its long-standing support for the Houthis, which threatens Yemen’s stability.”

London reiterated its “unwavering commitment” to the sovereignty of Yemen and Saudi Arabia, and voiced deep concern about the continuing detention by the Houthis of 73 members of UN staff, as well as numerous civil society workers and employees of nongovernmental organizations, some of whom have been held for more than two years, demanding their immediate and unconditional release.

The US alternate representative for special political affairs, Jennifer Locetta, said the escalation reflected “a systematic campaign to protect regional power and disrupt critical corridors.”

Houthi forces had targeted more than seven Saudi-linked commercial vessels in the Red Sea since declaring navigation restrictions, she added, as well as energy infrastructure in Yanbu, Jizan and Abqaiq, and had targeted Saudi airports with drones, injuring civilians.

Such actions amounted to a coordinated effort to enforce a self-declared maritime blockade and control security dynamics around Bab Al-Mandab Strait, Locetta said. Houthi ballistic-missile and drone attacks on territory held by Yemen’s internationally recognized government had caused dozens more casualties over the past week, she added.

“The link is crystal clear,” she said, as she accused the Houthis of “active cooperation and alignment with Tehran” through “terrorist actions that increase instability in the region and threaten global commerce.”

Washington stands with both the Yemeni government and Saudi Arabia against the “Iran-supported Houthi terrorist threat,” she added as she demanded an end to attacks that undermine freedom of navigation.

Locetta highlighted Security Council Resolution 2817, which was adopted in March and condemns attacks by Iran against regional neighbors and international shipping, as a reflection of the international consensus against attempts by Tehran and its proxies to undermine regional stability. “The impact of Iran’s failure to adhere to that resolution is all too clear today,” she added.

Bahrain’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, Suma Sameer Abdulkarim Alalaiwat, said the escalation confirmed warnings issued by Manama for months over the extension of the widening regional conflict into Yemen. She blamed the “Iran-backed Houthi terrorist militia” for pursuing “foreign agendas” at the expense of Yemeni lives and regional stability.

Bahrain condemned Houthi attacks on Aug. 6 in Marib and Hadramawt that killed and injured Yemeni civilians, including women and children, following an earlier strike on Jawl Nasim displacement camp in Marib, as well as Houthi ballistic missile and drone attacks targeting Saudi Arabia since July 13.

Alalaiwat expressed “full solidarity” with Saudi Arabia, and urged the council to take “a clear and firm stance” to protect maritime security and hold perpetrators of attacks accountable. Freedom of navigation through Bab Al-Mandab and the Strait of Hormuz “must not be compromised,” she warned, and inaction “will embolden the perpetrators.”

The condemnations came as the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, Tom Fletcher, warned the council that hunger was on the rise and health services were collapsing across Yemen as climate shocks converge with the renewed regional tensions.

Nearly 11 million women and girls need humanitarian support, he said, including about 5.5 million who are of reproductive age and more than 750,000 who are pregnant. Four out of five of them lack access to potentially life-saving reproductive healthcare, and only one in five medical facilities offer maternal care, a gap he said costs the lives of three women each day as a result of preventable, pregnancy-related complications.

Authorities in Marib this month declared a health emergency over a measles outbreak that now represents the second-highest caseload of the disease globally this year, Fletcher said, while more than half of Yemen’s population faces acute food insecurity and 6 million people face emergency-level deprivation bordering on famine, the highest number in any single country.

He attributed the deterioration to price inflation caused by regional tensions, economic decline and a critical aid-funding shortfall.

Fletcher appealed to donors to provide flexible, predictable funding, and to all parties involved in Yemen to protect civilians and immediately release the 73 detained members UN staff, along with employees of civil society and nongovernmental organizations.

He also urged Security Council members to “maintain your focus” to prevent further suffering.