Armed tribesmen loot UNICEF aid convey

A group of armed tribesmen robed four trucks carrying UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) aid for the internally displaced people (IDP) in the northern province of Sa’adah, which witnessed long sporadic war between the government and Houthi rebels in the past six years, the Interior Ministry said on Friday.

In a statement posted on its website, the ministry said the armed groups belonging to al-Osaimat tribe in Amran province, north of Sana’a and south of Sa’adah, intercepted the aid convoy late Thursday in Houth district of Amran while the convoy was en route from Sana’a to IDP’s camps in Sa’adah.

Security forces were hunting down the group to arrest them and regain the aid worth 44,000 U.S. dollars for the IDPs in Sa’adah, said the statement.

Source at UNICEF Yemen admitted the incident but refused to comment.

Yemen has witnessed sporadic battles since 2004 between government troops and the Shiite rebels, also known as Houthis, whom the government accused of seeking to re-establish the clerical rule overthrown by the 1962 Yemeni revolution that created the Yemeni republic.

On Feb. 11, the government and rebels reached a cease- fire agreement to end the conflict.

However, both sides repeatedly accused each other of breaching the truce after the agreement.

On Aug. 27, the Yemeni government and northern rebels signed another agreement in the Qatari capital Doha to cement the fragile ceasefire in northern Yemen.

According to a July report by the UN refugee agency UNHCR, the conflict between Houthi rebels and the government has resulted in 342,000 IDPs in north Yemen.

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