UN Special Envoy Hans Grundberg tells Security Council Yemen has slid back into full-scale war
Yemen Herald News 
NEW YORK, United States — The United Nations special envoy for Yemen told the Security Council on Friday that the country has slid back into full-scale war.
Hans Grundberg said fighting between the Houthi movement and forces loyal to the internationally recognised government had widened since August.
He urged Council members to keep backing mediation.
“Unless war is to become Yemen’s permanent reality, the time to consider political strategies is now,” Grundberg said.
Citing UN figures, he said at least 46 civilians had been killed and more than 130 injured since August.
Children accounted for a disproportionate share of those casualties, he said.
Grundberg said civilians, and women and children in particular, were bearing the brunt of the escalation.
He called on the Houthis to halt attacks on Saudi Arabia, on civilian infrastructure and on the kingdom’s energy sector.
He pointed to attacks on Abha International Airport and on King Khalid International Airport, north of Riyadh, which he said had caused civilian deaths and injuries.
Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation said attacks on King Khalid International Airport killed three Saudi citizens. The authority announced the toll on Friday.
Grundberg said Houthi threats against commercial vessels linked to Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea were undermining freedom of navigation.
He described regional security and freedom of navigation as legitimate concerns.
The envoy said the humanitarian situation in Taiz was deteriorating rapidly. Taiz is Yemen’s most densely populated governorate.
Houthi advances in the governorate threaten Taiz city and could cut off government forces further south, according to Security Council Report, which tracks the Council’s agenda.
Grundberg said military pressure could strengthen a party’s position at the table but could not take the place of talks.
“Gains on the battlefield cannot substitute for the negotiations,” he said.
He asked the Council to use the current phase to build a political process that addresses the conflict’s root causes and draws on existing Council resolutions.
Grundberg said 72 UN personnel remain detained by the Houthi authorities.
At least eight detainees, among them two UN employees, have been prosecuted by Houthi courts on espionage-related charges since 18 August and face a possible death sentence, according to Security Council Report. Some of those held have been detained since 2021.
Mohamed Yahya, the assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, briefed the same session, as did a civil society representative working on child protection. Closed consultations followed.
The International Organization for Migration has recorded more than 200,000 people displaced since the current fighting began.
UNICEF estimates about 71,000 children are among the displaced, and says hundreds of schools have closed.
The agency also reported at least 15 children killed and 14 injured since 3 September.
The World Health Organization said cholera cases have tripled in recent weeks.
Yemen imports close to 90 percent of its food.
Abdullah Ali Fadhel al-Saadi, Yemen’s representative to the United Nations, told the session that the Houthi threat was no longer an internal Yemeni affair.
He called for decisive, practical measures to cut the flow of funding, weapons and technology reaching the group. Al-Saadi thanked Saudi Arabia for its support for the Yemeni government.
Abdulaziz al-Wasil, Saudi Arabia’s representative to the United Nations, said the Council had to address what he called a dangerous escalation in Yemen.
He said Riyadh would not allow Yemen to become a staging ground for threats to Saudi security or to freedom of navigation.
The Houthi authorities control Sanaa and much of Yemen’s north and west. Yemen Herald found no public response from the Houthi leadership to Friday’s briefing.
The Houthis launched an offensive in September to widen their control across south-western Yemen and the Red Sea coast, according to Security Council Report.
The Yemeni government said on 5 October that it had retaken Mocha and positions near the Bab al-Mandab Strait with coalition air support.
The war began when Houthi forces seized Sanaa in September 2014. A Saudi-led coalition intervened on the government’s side in March 2015.
A UN-brokered truce took effect in April 2022 and formally lapsed six months later. Front lines were largely static in the years that followed.
The United Nations humanitarian response plan for Yemen for 2026 estimates that more than 22 million people need some form of assistance, and that 18.3 million are acutely food insecure.
The plan counts 5.2 million internally displaced people and seeks $2.16 billion to reach 12 million people this year.
The UN plan projects that about 2.2 million children under five will face acute malnutrition this year, including more than 500,000 with the severe form.
The Saudi-led coalition said on 6 October that it had intercepted Houthi missiles aimed at Khamis Mushait and at an area near Riyadh.
Three people were wounded the same day in attacks on King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Airport and Najran Airport, according to Security Council Report.
Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye met on 5 October under the Mecca Defense Alliance and condemned the attacks on Saudi territory.
Council members were expected to press both sides on compliance with the Yemen sanctions regime.
Grundberg said one UN staff member held by the Houthi authorities had been released. He did not give a date for the release.
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