Humanitarian group encouraged by truce in Yemen

A senior policy advisor with humanitarian aid group Mercy Corps said on Thursday her organisation is "extremely encouraged" by the extension of the nationwide truce in Yemen.

Yasmin Faruki said there were however concerns over the besieged city of Taiz, where road closures are making it difficult for people to access goods and services.

"Mercy Corps thinks that the extension of the truce is absolutely critical and essential so that we can see an improved access to goods and to services," Faruki said.

The United Nations said Thursday that Yemen’s warring parties have agreed to renew a nationwide truce for another two months.

The development offered a glimmer of hope for the country, plagued by eight years of civil war - though significant obstacles remain to lasting peace.

The cease-fire between Yemen’s internationally recognized government and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels initially came into effect on April 2.

And though each side at times accused the other of violating the cease-fire, it was the first nationwide truce in the past six years of the conflict in the Arab World’s most impoverished nation.

The announcement, which is the outcome of U.N. efforts, came only few hours before the original truce was set to expire later on Thursday.

The provisions of the original truce included reopening the roads around the besieged city of Taiz, establishing two commercial flights a week between Sanaa and Jordan and Egypt, and also allowing 18 vessels carrying fuel into the port of Hodeida.

Both Sanaa and Hodeida are controlled by the Houthi rebels.

The fighting in Yemen erupted in 2014, when the Houthis descended from their northern enclave and took over the capital of Sanaa, forcing the internationally recognized government to flee into exile in Saudi Arabia.

A Saudi-led coalition entered the war in early 2015 to try to restore the government to power.

The conflict, which eventually descended into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, has killed over 150,000 people, including over 14,500 civilians, and created one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, pushing millions of Yemenis to the brink of famine.

IMAGE: AP