Rebels faking Yemen ports pullout: govt

A senior pro-government official yesterday accused Yemen’s Huthi rebels of faking an announced pullout from three Red Sea ports in the flashpoint province of Hodeida.

“The Huthis are staging a new ploy by handing over the ports of Hodeida, Saleef and Ras Issa to themselves without any monitoring by the United Nations and the government side,” provincial governor Al-Hasan Taher told AFP.

The rebels and the United Nations have said the Huthis were to withdraw unilaterally from the three aid ports starting yesterday, in the first practical implementation of a ceasefire deal struck in Sweden in December.