UN plane to evacuate injured Houthi rebels in Yemen

A United Nations jet will evacuate as many as 50 wounded Houthi rebels in Yemen following UN ambassador to Yemen Martin Griffiths' request.

According to a Saudi-UAE coalition fighting Yemen's Houthi movement, the rebels will be taken for treatment to Oman's capital Muscat, reported Al Jazeera.

Griffiths requested the arrangement as a goodwill gesture in the run-up to planned peace talks in Sweden.

"A UN chartered plane will arrive at Sanaa international airport Monday to evacuate 50 wounded combatants accompanied by three Yemeni doctors and a UN doctor, from Sanaa to Muscat," stated coalition spokesperson Turki al-Maliki in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, as quoted by Al Jazeera.

 

Maliki further said that the United States-backed military alliance agreed to facilitate the medical evacuations at the request of Griffiths for "humanitarian reasons" and as a "confidence-building" measure.

However, no immediate reaction was received from Houthi rebels or the UN.

The strife-torn Middle East country has been engulfed in a conflict since 2015, with regular clashes between US-backed Saudi-led coalition and the Iranian-aligned Houthis that has reportedly claimed around 10,000 lives and displaced a thousand others.