UN envoy on 'astonishing loss of life' in Yemen war

The yearlong Houthi offensive in Yemen's oil-rich Marib province has caused an “astonishing loss of life,” United Nations special envoy Martin Griffiths said Wednesday, as the Security Council called for an immediate halt to fighting in the country.

Displaced people in Marib, the internationally recognized government’s last stronghold in Yemen’s northern half, are living in fear for their lives, Griffiths said.

In 2014, the Iran-backed Houthis overran the capital, Sanaa, and much of Yemen’s north, driving the government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi into exile.

A U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition intervened the following year against the Houthis seeking to restore Hadi’s rule.

The intensified fighting in Marib has come amid an international and regional diplomatic push to end the conflict.

“The longer the Marib offensive goes on, the greater the risk to Yemen’s broader stability and social cohesion,” Griffiths warned.

U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said 25,000 people have fled the fighting in Marib, and that if the fighting doesn't stop, “aid agencies fear up to 385,000 people could be displaced in the coming months.”

But initiatives to achieve peace have been met with "arrogance" and "refusal" by the Houthis, said Yemen's permanent U.N. representative Abdullah Ali Fadhel Al-Saadi.

"It is unconceivable for those terrorist militias to choose peace while receiving military, logistic, and media support from the rogue Iranian regime," he added.

In a press statement, the Security Council said only a lasting cease-fire and political settlement can end the six-year conflict in the Arab world's poorest nation and the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.