(11 Mar 2019) On January 17th 2019 representatives of Yemen's warring sides continued their talks for the second day in the Jordanian capital on implementing a prisoners exchange agreed to in Sweden in December 2018. The spokeswoman for UN envoy Martin Griffiths, Hanan Elbadawi, called the two-day meeting between the Houthi Shiite rebels and the internationally recognised government a "technical one."
Delegates from the International Committee of the Red Cross were also attending the talks.
They come as the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday voted unanimously to authorize a U.N. mission to monitor implementation of a cease-fire and the withdrawal of rival forces from the key port of Hodeida agreed to by the government and the Houthi rebels.
Yemen plunged into civil war in 2014, when the rebels capered the capital, Sanaa, and a Saudi-led coalition intervened a year later, fighting alongside government troops.
In Sweden, the two sides agreed to confidence-building measures, including an exchange of thousands of prisoners. But the implementation of that has been slow marred by violence.
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On January 26th most of the residents of a camp for the displaced in Northern Yemen have left their makeshift homes after a shelling attack killed at least eight there earlier in the week.
Walking on foot and carrying their few belongings, they say they are going to a desert location near the Saudi Arabian border which they hope will be further away from the fighting.
The United Nations that the shelling of the camp in Haradh district in the province of Hajjah, not far from the border with Saudi Arabia, had also wounded at least 30.
Hajjah, the stronghold of Yemen's Houthi rebels, has seen some of the worst shortages and fighting since the war began.
Tens of civilians have been killed and hundreds of families displaced in the province in the previous two months.
Shafiqa Nagi, one of the displaced, says her daughter was injured in the shelling and taken to a hospital which is far away.
Nagi has had to stay home to look after the rest of her children and doesn't know her condition.
Yemen's four-year war pits Iran-aligned Houthi rebels against an internationally recognised government supported by a Saudi-led coalition.
The UN said the attack occurred on Saturday, and that an attack earlier in January near the same camp killed six children and two women.
But it did not say from which direction or side the shelling might have come.
UN envoy Martin Griffiths is in the country this week to discuss the situation in and around the coastal city of Hodeida, where Yemen's warring parties agreed to a cease-fire in December 2018.
The two sides also agreed to a prisoner exchange last month that has yet to take place.
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Fatima Hadi is 12 years old but she's so thin she struggles to move.
She is suffering from severe acute malnutrition and her life is in danger.
Doctors at the charity medical clinic where she's being treated say with continual medical supervision at a more specialised facility, Fatima's condition could improve.
For many Yemeni children like Fatima, such help is out of the question.
Aid groups are calling for donations to help battle hunger in war-torn Yemen where most of the population does not have enough to eat.
Ahead of a conference in Geneva starting on February 26th they have implored donors to pledge generously.
The United Nations is appealing for more than four billion US dollars to assist 15 million people across Yemen in 2019.
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