A senior pro-government official accused Yemen's Huthi rebels of faking an announced pullout from three Red Sea ports in the flashpoint province of Hodeida on Saturday. "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 Saturday, in the first practical implementation of a ceasefire deal struck in Sweden in December. Taher's accusation came after the Huthi rebels, who have been in control of the ports since 2014, said they had carried out their obligations.
"We have implemented all obligations of the first phase of redeployment. The UN must commit the other side to implement its obligations," Brigadier Mohammed al-Qaderi, the Huthi representative in a joint coordination team, said on Twitter. Sources close to the Iran-aligned Huthis told AFP that the ports were handed over to coast guard personnel who were in charge before the rebels took over almost five years ago.