Yemen: UN Security Council condemns Houthi missile attacks targeting Saudi cities

The denouncement against such launches, including the use of ballistic missiles, came in a Press Statement issued late Wednesday by the Council, which said that the 25 March attacks ‘threatened civilian areas and resulted in at least one fatality.”

The Statement said the 15-member body “underlined that such attacks pose a serious national security threat to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as well as a wider threat to regional security.”

Since the uprisings in Yemen broke out in early 2011, the UN has been engaged in helping Yemenis to find a peaceful solution.  However, on 26 March 2015, a coalition of countries led by Saudi Arabia intervened militarily at the request of President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi to secure the return of the Government to Sana’a, which had been seized by Houthi militias and allied units of the armed forces.

Three years on, the fighting is raging and the ensuing humanitarian crisis has only deepened in a country that was already one of the region’s poorest.

In the Statement, the Council “reiterated the need for all parties to return to dialogue as the only means of delivering a negotiated political settlement and engage constructively with the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, with a view towards swiftly reaching a final and comprehensive agreement to end the conflict and address the ongoing humanitarian crisis.”