UN says special envoy to Yemen stepping down

The U.N. has announced that its special envoy to Yemen is stepping down after four years of efforts at a peaceful political transition in the Arab world’s poorest country fell apart amid a Shiite rebel uprising and Saudi-led airstrikes.

 

A statement late Wednesday said Jamal Benomar “has expressed an interest in moving on to another assignment” and that his successor will be named “in due course.”

 

Benomar had come under criticism from some in the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia, as his efforts to broker peace showed little success. He regularly briefed the Security Council on Yemen and was well regarded by many diplomats.

 

Yemen is now under weeks of airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition in an attempt to push back Shiite Houthi rebels who swept south from their region near the Saudi border and caused the president to flee.

 

The U.N. said in its statement that it will “spare no efforts to re-launch the peace process,” but the challenge has grown as the fighting in Yemen has become a kind of proxy war between Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies and Iran, a predominantly Shiite nation that has supported the Houthis. More than 700 people have been killed since the airstrikes began.

 

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