A difficult calm

A difficult calm

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Yemen’s main warring factions endorsed a U.N.-brokered humanitarian truce from midnight on Friday although heavy fighting on the ground and Saudi air strikes carried on relentlessly.

The week-long truce will end at the same time as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and aims to get aid to some 21 million Yemenis. All sides said they hoped a full ceasefire would follow.

. Taiz, Yemen. REUTERS/Reuters Photographer
The body of a man lies under the rubble of a building destroyed by a Saudi-led air strike.

The U.N. has worked intensively to broker a ceasefire to halt more than three months of many-sided fighting inside the country and Saudi-led air strikes against the Houthis and their army allies that have killed more than 3,000 people.

A Saudi Arabia-led coalition of Arab states has been bombing the Iranian-allied Houthi rebel movement since late March in a bid to restore to power Yemen's President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who has fled to Riyadh.

"We have agreed to go ahead, based on two major points. The first is the commitment of all parties not to violate this ceasefire, this humanitarian pause. The second is that humanitarian assistance can reach all parts of Yemen," said United Nations envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed.

. Sanaa, Yemen. REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi
Houthi followers hold rifles and mock missiles as they shout slogans during a demonstration against the United Nations.

Relief agencies say the fighting and a near-blockade imposed by an alliance of Arab states, aimed at stopping weapons deliveries to the Houthis, have caused a humanitarian disaster in Yemen, with over 80 percent of its 25 million people now needing some form of emergency aid.

Rights groups have also condemned local blockades by armed groups on supplies headed for war-torn civilian areas.

. Aden, Yemen. Reuters/Reuters Photographer
A Southern Popular Resistance fighter fires a weapon mounted on a truck during clashes with Houthi fighters.

The dominant Houthis shelled residential areas in the southern port of Aden overnight and pushed further into Yemen's eastern Hadramawt desert, the centre of the country's modest oil resources, fighting tribal militiamen, a local official said.

. Sanaa, Yemen. REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi

A senior Western diplomat said the intensity of battles raging nationwide would render a swift calm difficult.

"It is still going to be a challenge to have this call heeded within the next 24 hours because of the entrenched fighting on the ground," the diplomat told Reuters.

. Sanaa, Yemen. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Houthi rebels transport part of a Saudi fighter jet.

The Arab coalition has pounded the Houthis and their army allies from the air since March 26 as part of a bid to restore exiled president Hadi to power.

"We hope this truce will be the beginning of the end of the Saudi aggression and the end of the violation of United Nations conventions that the war of aggression on Yemen has seen,” said Mohammed al-Houthi, a top Houthi leader.

However, in a televised speech on Tuesday, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, leader of the Houthi Ansarullah group, doubted that the ceasefire would hold.

"As for the truce, we don't have big hope in its success, because its success is linked to the commitment of the Saudi regime and its allies," he said.

. Sanaa, Yemen. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Shi'ite Houthi rebels swim at the house of the business tycoon and Islah party leader Hameed al-Hamar after they took control of it.

Yemen's government has demanded that the Houthis comply with a U.N. Security Council Resolution in April, which called on them to quit seized land and release prisoners.

The Houthis do not agree to those demands and view their takeover of the capital in September as part of a revolution against a corrupt government backed by the West.

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Houthi militants guard the house of Ali Haidar, a Houthi leader, destroyed by a Saudi-led air strike.
. Sanaa, Yemen. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

Houthi militants guard the house of Ali Haidar, a Houthi leader, destroyed by a Saudi-led air strike.

A Houthi follower holds up a rifle as he takes part in a demonstration against the United Nations.
. Sanaa, Yemen. REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi

A Houthi follower holds up a rifle as he takes part in a demonstration against the United Nations.

People flee as smoke billows after air strikes hit the house of Yemen's former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
. Sanaa, Yemen. REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi

People flee as smoke billows after air strikes hit the house of Yemen's former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

People walk past houses destroyed by a Saudi-led air strike.
. Sanaa, Yemen. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

People walk past houses destroyed by a Saudi-led air strike.

People look at houses destroyed by a Saudi-led air strike.
. Sanaa, Yemen. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

People look at houses destroyed by a Saudi-led air strike.

People display shell fragment collected from their house amid clashes between members of the anti-Houthi Popular Resistance Committees and Houthi fighters.
. Sanaa, Yemen. Reuters/Reuters Photographer

People display shell fragment collected from their house amid clashes between members of the anti-Houthi Popular Resistance Committees and Houthi fighters.

A Houthi militant stands amid debris from the house of a Houthi leader Rafiq Rafiq, which was destroyed by a Saudi-led air strike.
. Sanaa, Yemen. REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi

A Houthi militant stands amid debris from the house of a Houthi leader Rafiq Rafiq, which was destroyed by a Saudi-led air strike.

A Houthi militant sits amid debris from the Yemeni Football Association building, damaged in a Saudi-led air strike.
. Sanaa, Yemen. REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi

A Houthi militant sits amid debris from the Yemeni Football Association building, damaged in a Saudi-led air strike.

Girls wait for food rations outside a charity’s food assistance centre.
. Sanaa, Yemen. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

Girls wait for food rations outside a charity’s food assistance centre.

A guard stands on the collapsed roof of the house of General Ali al-Dhafif, a Yemeni army brigade commander, after it was hit by Saudi-led air strikes.
. Sanaa, Yemen. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

A guard stands on the collapsed roof of the house of General Ali al-Dhafif, a Yemeni army brigade commander, after it was hit by Saudi-led air strikes.

People carry the body of a man they uncovered from under rubble.
. Sanaa, Yemen. REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi

People carry the body of a man they uncovered from under rubble.

Medics attend to a fighter of the Popular Resistance Committees at a hospital after he was injured during clashes with Houthi fighters.
. Taiz, Yemen. REUTERS/Reuters Photographer

Medics attend to a fighter of the Popular Resistance Committees at a hospital after he was injured during clashes with Houthi fighters.

A woman sits near her father as he waits to be given a hospital bed.
. SANAA, Yemen. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

A woman sits near her father as he waits to be given a hospital bed.