Makkah/Aden: Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, met Yemeni President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi in Makkah on Monday to take stock of the latest developments in Yemen, ongoing efforts to restore stability, and the delivery of humanitarian and relief assistance to the Yemeni people.
Shaikh Abdullah reiterated the UAE’s unequivocal position towards Yemen and its people under the Saudi-led Arab coalition, and its support for the legitimate government in order to restore stability and security to Yemen and safeguard its sovereignty and unity.
Shaikh Abdullah also emphasised the UAE’s support for UN efforts to restore stability and ensure delivery of humanitarian assistance.
Hadi was due to hold talks in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday. Yemen’s state-run news agency, Saba, reported that Hadi was visiting the UAE on the advice of Saudi King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz and Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman.
The Saudi-led Arab coalition geared up on Tuesday for an assault on Yemen’s main port, preparing to launch by far the biggest battle of a three-year-old war between an alliance of Arab states and the Iran-backed Al Houthi militia that controls Yemen’s capital. It would be the first time since they joined the war on behalf of Yemen’s exiled government that the foreign armies have attempted to capture such a well-defended major city.
Local military sources said hundreds of Yemeni fighters as well as tanks and military supplies from the UAE arrived on Monday to reinforce troops, including Emiratis and Sudanese, in Durihami, a rural area 10km south of Hodeida.
The sources said Yemeni forces allied to the Saudi-led coalition — drawn from southern separatists, local units from the Red Sea coastal plain and a battalion led by a nephew of late former president Ali Abdullah Saleh — had advanced and were “at the doors” of Hodeida airport.
Yemeni officials said the UN had pulled its international staff out of Hodeida on the Red Sea amid a widely expected assault by government forces to seize the strategic port city.
The officials said Tuesday the UN’s operations centre there is still being manned by local staff. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorised to brief reporters. The coalition says one of the main justifications for its intervention is to protect Red Sea shipping, which brings Middle East oil and Asian goods to Europe through the Suez Canal.
The coalition, backed by the UAE Armed Forces, bombarded the Iran-backed Al Houthis’ fortifications in Al Jarahi, Tahita and Bait Al Faqih areas on Yemen’s Red Sea coast, killing scores of militiamen, who later fled the battlefronts in droves.
The Yemeni Resistance managed to secure the coastline extending from Al Khokha up to Al Durahami area, south of Hodeida, amid massive operations aimed at expunging the rebels from the their bastions in Tahita, Zubeid, Bait Al Faqih and eastern areas along the coastline.
