Retired Danish general Michael Lollesgaard arrived Tuesday in Sanaa to head the UN observer mission in war-wracked Yemen and replace his predecessor whose ties with the rebels were reportedly strained. Lollesgaard replaces Patrick Cammaert, the Dutch general who had been tapped a little over a month ago to lead the mission deployed in the lifeline Red Sea port city of Hodeida.
The new mission head made no comments upon his arrival in Sanaa, an AFP correspondent said, and it was not clear when exactly he would begin his mission in Hodeida.
He will oversee a team of 75 unarmed observers to monitor a fragile ceasefire deal for Hodeida agreed in December between the Huthis and the Yemeni government at UN-brokered talks in Sweden. Diplomats say relations have been strained between Cammaert and the Iran-linked Huthi rebels battling the Saudi-backed government, and with the UN envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths.
Some Huthis have accused him of running his own agenda, a claim disputed by the United Nations which said his only mission was to improve the lives off the embattled Yemeni people. On January 17, his convoy came under fire in the flashpoint city of Hodeida but he and his team escaped unhurt and the UN said the source of the shooting was unknown.
Hodeida port is the entry point for the bulk of Yemen's supplies of imported goods and humanitarian aid, providing a lifeline to millions on the brink of starvation. Lollesgaard, born in 1960, commanded the UN peacekeeping force in Mali (MINUSMA) from 2015 to 2016, and he then became Denmark's military representative to NATO and the European Union in 2017.
He was also military adviser to Denmark's UN mission in New York and served in peace support operations in Iraq and Bosnia His new appointment was endorsed at the end of January by the UN Security Council.
Yemen's rebels have been mired in a war with government forces backed since 2015 by a Saudi-led military coalition.
The conflict has triggered what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with millions of people at risk of starvation. The World Health Organization has put the death toll since 2015 at about 10,000 people but rights groups say that figure could be five times higher.
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