Deputy Foreign Minister Mansour Bagash receives copy of Cuban ambassador's credentials

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ADEN, Yemen — Mansour Bagash, Yemen’s deputy foreign minister for political affairs, received a copy of the Cuban ambassador’s credentials on Tuesday, the state news agency Saba said.

Saba identified the envoy as Miguel Yortobarga, ambassador of the Republic of Cuba to the Republic of Yemen.

That spelling is the agency’s own transliteration. Yemen Herald found no rendering of the name in Cuban government material against which to check it.

Bagash welcomed the ambassador and wished him success in his mission, the agency said.

He briefed the envoy on what Saba called the latest developments in Yemen, and on government efforts to restore state institutions and extend state authority across the country.

Saba said Bagash also raised the government’s campaign against what it described as Iran-backed Houthi terrorist militias.

That characterisation is the Yemeni government’s. The Houthi movement rejects it, and denies that it acts as an Iranian proxy.

The ambassador affirmed Cuba’s willingness to develop cooperation and coordination with the Yemeni government, according to the agency.

The account of the meeting rests on Saba alone. No independent confirmation has been published, and Cuba’s foreign ministry has issued no statement of its own on it.

Saba did not say when the ambassador would present his original credentials, or to whom. It gave no detail of his previous postings.

A previous Cuban envoy’s credentials were received by Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi during his presidency, according to a foreign ministry record of that event.

Aden is the seat of Yemen’s internationally recognised government, which relocated its institutions to the southern port city after losing the capital. Sanaa remains under Houthi control.

Bagash has taken a series of diplomatic meetings this month. He met Japan’s ambassador on October 15 and thanked Tokyo for humanitarian support, Saba reported at the time.

The ministry’s own record of the office’s work includes meetings between the deputy foreign minister and the Chinese charge d’affaires and the European Union ambassador.

Yemen’s own ambassador to Cuba met officials of the Cuban Communist Party last week, according to the foreign ministry’s account. He briefed them on the Houthi escalation and on the siege of Taiz.

In that meeting the Yemeni envoy called for international pressure on the Houthis to lift the siege, Antara News reported.

Government statements describe Taiz as under Houthi siege. The Houthis dispute that characterisation.

The credentials handover falls in the middle of a government push to have the Houthis listed internationally as a terrorist organisation.

Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council, asked UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on October 19 to support international action to designate the group, the foreign ministry said.

The GCC Ministerial Council has called on the international community to enforce an arms embargo on the Houthis and to designate them a terrorist group. The council also affirmed Yemen’s unity in the same statement.

Yemen’s human rights minister discussed Houthi violations with a German foreign ministry official and asked Berlin to support a European Union designation, Saba said.

The developments Bagash described to the ambassador have moved quickly. Fighting escalated on September 3.

The Houthis advanced in September toward territory near the Bab al-Mandab Strait, Reuters reported. Saudi-backed Yemeni forces attacked Houthi positions near the shipping route in early October, CNN reported.

The strait is one of the world’s main shipping lanes. Yemeni government forces have intensified strikes against the Houthis on several fronts, Asharq Al-Awsat reported.

The Houthis fired four ballistic missiles at a city in central Yemen, while government forces said they repelled an attack in the south, the Express Tribune reported.

The two sides have traded attacks since. On October 19 a Houthi bombardment struck the Al-Alam security forces training camp in Shabwa province.

The camp trains recruits for the government’s security forces. Shabwa Governor Awad al-Wazir said 58 people were killed, more than 200 were injured and 14 were missing.

Reuters said video it verified from the site showed injured people and bodies. An earlier report by the agency cited sources putting the toll at at least 18 killed. The Reuters account carried no Houthi statement on the attack.

Casualty counts from the escalation come largely from the warring parties, and they do not agree. The Houthi-run health ministry in Sanaa has published its own tallies of civilian dead and wounded since September 3. Yemen Herald has not been able to corroborate those figures independently.

Humanitarian conditions have not eased. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says more than 22 million people in Yemen need assistance this year.

Its plan, issued in March, put the number of acutely food insecure people at 18.3 million. It counted more than 2.2 million children under five as acutely malnourished, of whom 516,157 are severely malnourished.

The plan records 5.2 million people displaced inside the country. It seeks 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million people.

Saba did not say which areas of cooperation Bagash and the ambassador discussed. It did not say whether either side raised trade or consular matters.

Saba’s report gave the meeting no location beyond Aden, and named no other officials as present.

The agency refers to the deputy minister as Dr. Mansour Bagash.