Mushki Stresses on UN Mission the Need to Stop Piracy of US-Saudi Aggression

The head of the Redeployment Team Major General Ali Al-Mushki met on Wednesday with the head of the United Nations Mission to Support the Hodeidah Agreement General Michael Perry.

“The UN mission must work to stop the US-Saudi aggression’s piracy on oil ships without delving into marginal matters,” a source in the National Redeployment Team in Hodeidah quoted Mushki as saying during the meeting..

Mushki also reviewed with General Michael Perry the continuous violations of the US-Saudi aggression and its non-compliance with the Stockholm Agreement.

For his part, the head of the United Nations Mission to Support the Hodeidah Agreement General Michael Beary praised the constructive cooperation the mission enjoyed in order to make its work successful by the national side.

On a daily basis, the Saudi-led aggression violates the UN-backed agreement, reached between the warring sides during a round of UN-sponsored peace negotiations in Sweden in December 2018.

The agreement committed the parties to an immediate ceasefire in the city of Hodeidah and the ports of Hodeidah, Salif and Ras Issa, redeployment of forces, securing the ports, the establishment of the joint Redeployment Coordination Committee chaired by the United Nations, and the use of the revenues of the ports to support civil service salary payments.

The continuous violations by the forces of aggression in Hodeidah come in light of an international silence identifying the aggression and its crimes against the Yemeni people.

Last month, the Yemen Petroleum Company (YPC) said in a statement that, “The total fines for delaying fuel ships seized by the US-Saudi aggression amounted to 11 million dollars during the truce period”. The company reiterated that the US-Saudi aggression continued to piracy on all fuel ships, without exception, and to seize them since the announcement of the temporary truce.

The company explained that the fuel ships are still being held by the US-Saudi aggression for varying periods, a total of 314 days since the announcement of the truce agreement, in addition to the delay in Djibouti for a total period of more than 152 days.

It stressed that during the truce period (April-September), only 33 fuel ships out of 54 ships reached Hodeidah ports, of which only four were released on August 2, at the end of the first extension period of the truce.

The statement stated that fuel shipments incurred delay fines during the truce period, amounting to 11 million dollars due to piracy, detention and delaying their entry to the ports of Hodeidah.

It pointed out that the number of currently detained fuel vessels has reached nine fuel vessels, all of which have UN entry permits.

The YPC confirmed that the complicity of the relevant UN formations with the US-Saudi aggression seriously contributes to the exacerbation of explicit violations of the truce agreement.

It pointed out that this complicity became an actual participation in the siege through the coordinates sent by the UNIVM to the ships authorized to go to the detention area and stay there, waiting for a permit to allow them to reach the ports of Hodeidah.

The YPC holds the US-Saudi aggression and the UN responsible for all the direct and indirect humanitarian and economic consequences and repercussions resulting from the continuation of the strict blockade on fuel ships.