RNA - Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told a donor conference in Geneva that, "Alarming rumors are mounting that there are preparations underway to storm al-Hodeida and for a further offensive against Sana’a. This should be prevented. The scale of this awful Yemenite tragedy will significantly increase," Al Waght reported.
Gatilov also stressed the need to end the conflict in Yemen so as to ease the humanitarian situation.
Donor countries have pledged nearly $1.1 billion for humanitarian aid to Yemen, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at the end of a one-day pledging conference. The UN has said it needs $2.1 billion this year to avert famine in Yemen, where a child dies every 10 minutes of hunger and disease.
Earlier, UN and Russian officials also warned against an attack by Saudi-led coalition forces on the port of Al hodeida, the aid lifeline for a country where millions of people are in desperate need of food.
Saudi Arabia launched brutal aggression against its Southern neighbor on 27 March 2015 in a bid to restore power to Yemen's resigned president who fled to Riyadh after Yemeni people's uprising in 2015.
Western countries especially the US, Britain are among key suppliers of weapons used by the Saudi regime to commit atrocities and war crimes in Yemen.
Over 13,100 Yemenis, mostly civilians including women and children, have been killed during the ongoing Saudi-leg aggression on Yemen. The Saudi military aggression has also taken a heavy toll on Yemen’s facilities and infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, mosques and factories.
The conflict brought the country to the brink of the world’s worst humanitarian disaster and famine, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Stephen O’Brien told the Council. According to the UN, two-thirds of the Yemenite population, or some 19 million people, require humanitarian assistance, and more than 7 million people are starving.
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