AL-MUKALLA: Houthi attacks continued in Yemen on Thursday as the secretary-general of the Gulf Cooperation Council arrived in the port city of Aden.
The militia reportedly fired four missiles at camps for displaced people in Marib. They hit three camps but caused no damage or injuries to the civilian population, according to the government’s executive unit for camps for internally displaced people.
The unit urged the international community to protect Yemeni civilians from Houthi aggression and said: “The Houthi militia’s attacks on cities and civilian hiding places are heinous acts that threaten the safety and stability of society. We demand immediate action to control and bring to justice these militias.”
GCC chief Jassem Mohammed Al-Budaiwi visited Aden on Thursday to show support for the country’s Presidential Leadership Council and push for peace efforts to end the war. It was the first time in several years that he had visited Yemen, and he met the leader of the council, Rashad Al-Alimi, Yemen’s official media reported.
During the meeting, Al-Budaiwi reaffirmed the GCC’s support for the leadership council and its efforts to restore peace and stability, and for the intensifying UN-led peace process. He also called for the implementation of all provisions of the 2019 Riyadh Agreement, designed to ease tensions between factions in Yemen, and thanked Saudi Arabia and Oman for their efforts as mediators during the conflict.
“The visit of the Gulf Cooperation Council secretary-general to the interim capital, Aden, confirms the Gulf’s continued support for Yemeni legitimacy, as well as the Gulf’s support for the government’s efforts to establish security, stability, development and the provision of services to citizens,” Abdul Baset Al-Qaedi, undersecretary at Yemen’s Information Ministry, told Arab News.
Yemeni officials said the GCC has been playing an important role in defusing tensions in Yemen for more than a decade, and its peace efforts resulted in two significant power transitions.
Under the 2011 GCC Peace Initiative, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh ceded power to his deputy, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. In 2022, the GCC-sponsored Riyadh Consultation on Yemen brought together hundreds of Yemenis from across the political, religious, social and tribal spectrum in a single forum that resulted in the formation of the Presidential Leadership Council.
Al-Budaiwi’s trip to Aden coincided with visits by Hans Grundberg, the UN’s special envoy for Yemen, to a number of regional cities in an attempt to persuade factions in the country to renew a UN-brokered truce and strike a peace agreement.
The UN envoy had visited government-controlled Marib on Wednesday, where he met Sultan Al-Aradah, the city’s governor and a member of the leadership council, to discuss peace efforts and other issues.
Al-Aradah told the envoy that the Houthis are not serious about ending the conflict in Yemen and are collaborating with terrorist organizations to undermine the peace process.
