The UN is to try to prevent the collapse of the ceasefire agreement in Yemenby endorsing a fresh security council resolution urgently increasing the number of monitors overseeing the deal in Hodeidah, the strategic port that lies at the heart of the three-year civil war. The resolution, drafted by the UK, would extend the UN monitoring role for a further six months and increase the number of monitors to as many as 75 people. UN personnel were likely to be transferred from Djibouti to Hodeida.

Both the Houthi rebels and the UN-backed government of Yemen’s president, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, have accused each other of multiple breaches of the ceasefire. The terms of that ceasefire – agreed in haste at UN-brokered talks in Stockholm in December – were seen as flawed due to a lack of precision and the country’s geographical limits. The absence of an adequate number of UN monitors has also made it more difficult for the UN to ascribe responsibility for breaches, and so prevent their repetition.(theguardian)…[+]