AL-MUKALLA: At least seven Yemeni infants have died recently in tents in the central province of Marib as a result of extreme cold, local Yemeni authorities said on Tuesday.
Khaled Al-Shajani, deputy head of the internationally recognized government’s executive unit for camps for the internally displaced in Marib, told Arab News that his office had received reports of the deaths of six newborns in Al-Ma’asher camp and one at another camp in Marib city due to the recent drop in temperatures and chronic scarcity of heaters and adequate shelters.
“Tents provide little protection from the sun’s heat or winter’s cold. There is no heating and no winter sleeping bags, and the quality of medical services is low,” Al-Shajani said, predicting that the number of fatalities among children and illnesses among the elderly may rise in the coming weeks as a result of inadequate assistance from international aid agencies.
The deaths happened as the executive unit issued an urgent call for the rescue of 56,000 displaced families residing in 67 camps in the desert of Marib, which is prone to freezing temperatures and strong cold winds.
More than 2 million Yemenis have sought safety in Marib as they fled Houthi tyranny and warfare in their home areas, making it the city with the highest concentration of internally displaced persons.
Local officials in the city have long complained about the flood of displaced individuals and their inability to supply them with food, housing and medicine.
Separately, Omani mediators arrived in Houthi-held Sanaa on Tuesday for the second time in less than a month for discussions with the militia’s leaders about renewing the UN-brokered truce and embracing peace overtures in order to negotiate a viable agreement to end the war in Yemen.
Oman, which hosts a number of Houthi leaders, is now spearheading international attempts to persuade the Houthis to de-escalate and cooperate with peace initiatives.
With no apparent progress, the Omani delegation left Sanaa on Dec. 25 after the Houthis refused to budge on their demands that the Yemeni government pay public workers in regions under their control and split oil earnings before the militia ends assaults on oil infrastructure in southern Yemen.
In November, the Omanis began negotiations with the Houthis after UN Yemen Envoy Hans Grundberg failed to persuade them to extend the truce and stop threatening to begin military operations.
Under the terms of the truce that went into force on April 2, the Yemeni government permitted commercial planes to leave from Sanaa airport and authorized the anchoring of petroleum ships at Hodeidah.
In October, the truce collapsed because the Houthis refused to reopen roads in Taiz or extend the truce unless the Yemeni government paid public workers in their regions.
Meanwhile, in Riyadh, Rashad Al-Alimi, president of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, met British Ambassador to Yemen Richard Oppenheim to discuss the effects of Houthi strikes on Yemen’s worsening humanitarian situation, international attempts to persuade the Yemeni militia to embrace peace overtures, and the Yemeni government’s efforts to stabilize the economy, the official SABA news agency reported.
