UN Security Council to hold consultations on Yemen

The UN Security Council (UNSC) is expected to hold consultations on Yemen amid the ongoing Saudi airstrikes against the country.

UN diplomatic sources said the session was expected to start at 5:00 p.m. (2100 GMT) on Tuesday.

Stephen O'Brien, the head of the UN humanitarian operations, would give a briefing to ambassadors of the council's 15 member states before meeting behind closed doors, the sources added.

Several rights groups have repeatedly criticized the UN for what they call the world body's inaction regarding Saudi Arabia's aggression against Yemen.

Saudi airstrikes on Yemen's Aden and Lahij provinces have shattered a humanitarian truce Riyadh announced on July 26. 

On Tuesday, Human Rights Watch censured the Saudi regime for committing an "apparent war crime." The New York-based rights group said the "failure of Saudi Arabia ... to investigate apparently unlawful air strikes in Yemen demonstrates the need for the United Nations Human Rights Council to create a commission of inquiry."

The humanitarian situation in Yemen has become critical with many international aid organizations seeking a safe passage into the country to send much needed medical and humanitarian supplies to the suffering nation.

More than four months of the Saudi airstrikes have caused severe shortages in basic necessities and nine million people remain in dire need of immediate assistance across Yemen.

Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said in mid June that over 80 percent of Yemen’s population was in dire need of humanitarian assistance.

Riyadh has been carrying out airstrikes against Yemen since March 26 - without a UN mandate. The deadly campaign is meant to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement and restore power to Yemen's fugitive former President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh. 

According to UN figures, the Saudi war has killed nearly 1,900 civilians since late March. However, local sources have given a much higher number of fatalities, with some of them putting the total death toll at nearly 5,000. 

Hamza al-Houthi, the head of the Ansarullah delegation in Geneva consultations on Yemen, told Press TV in an exclusive interview that the United Nations "had not done anything" to stop the Saudi aggression against Yemen.

"Unfortunately, the UN, this international organization, has not done anything [to stop the Saudi military aggression] … and we have not heard any voice either from the UN or from the international community,” Houthi said.

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