Yemeni government officials reported the country’s first case of COVID-19 [9] on April 10, shortly after the Saudi Arabia-led coalition announced that it would be observing a two-week unilateral ceasefire [10], in part to help confront the pandemic. The move was welcomed by the UN [11], and the office of Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths said he was working [12] with the warring parties on a "comprehensive initiative" to end the five-year war. But a Houthi rebel spokesperson said coalition air-strikes had continued after the truce's onset, and dismissed the initiative as a "political and media manoeuvre [13]." The rebels were reportedly [14] not consulted before the coalition's April 8 ceasefire declaration, but on the same evening a senior Houthi figure [15] posted on Twitter the details of his group's plan to end the war. All of this comes on the heels of a recent increase in violence, including Saudi air-strikes on the Houthi-controlled capital city of Sana'a [16], and the shelling of a prison [17] in the province of Taiz that reportedly killed at least five women and one child.
From The New Humanitarian [18], April 10
