“Economic affairs will be the priority of our work in the coming period”, he told the crowd who waved Yemeni flags and chanted slogans against the war at Sanaa’s Sabeen Square.
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In an apparent response to the Houthi show of force, ambassadors from the G18 group of nations, including Russian Federation, that has backed UN peace talks to end Yemen’s civil war issued a statement condemning “unconstitutional and unilateral actions in Sanaa”.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said Saturday that more than three million Yemenis have been displaced by the ongoing conflict in the Arab country.
People hold a poster of Yemen’s former president Ali Abdullah Saleh as they demonstrate outside a parliament session held for the first time since a civil war began nearly two years ago, in Sanaa, Yemen August 13, 2016.
Saleh is a close ally of the Shia Houthi group, which overran capital Sanaa and other provinces in late 2014 and forced President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi to flee to Saudi Arabia. “But it could also make it easier, as both sides would give in to their authority, and then create a unified government, where elections will take place in six months, and then a new Yemen in formed”, Masmari said.
Saudi Arabia’s civil defense directorate said that the Houthis had launched a missile over the border into the Najran region, killing a Saudi and wounding five Yemenis and a Pakistani who were residents there.
Pro-government forces engaged in a deadly fighting with Houthi militants east of the capital Sanaa, Abdullah al-Shendouki, a spokesman for pro-government forces, said in a statement on his Facebook page.
The Houthi militias and Saleh’s General People’s Congress hold most of Yemen’s northern half while forces loyal to exiled Hadi share control of the rest of the country along with local tribes.
Earlier this month, UN-sponsored negotiations between representatives from Hadi’s government and rebels ended in Kuwait without a breakthrough.
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The central bank has been considered the last bastion of the impoverished country’s financial system, paying salaries to state employees on both sides of the front lines and guaranteeing food imports as Yemen approaches starvation.
