NEW YORK CITY: The UN Security Council on Wednesday adopted a resolution that extends by six months the requirement for the secretary-general to provide monthly reports on attacks by the Houthis in Yemen against ships in the Red Sea.

The reporting obligation was established by the adoption of Resolution 2722 in January 2024, which was introduced in response to the repeated attacks on commercial shipping. The Iran-backed Houthis vowed to continue targeting vessels until Israel ended its war in Gaza.

The attacks prompted retaliatory strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen by the US, UK and Israel. Meanwhile, the EU launched Operation Aspides, a defensive mission based in Greece that aims to safeguard and escort vessels in the Red Sea but does not participate in any offensive action.

The text of the extension resolution was drafted by Greece and the US, the co-penholders on the issue of the Red Sea crisis. Twelve members of the Security Council voted in favor, while Algeria, China and Russia abstained.

A source at the Russian mission in New York told Arab News that although the safety of maritime navigation is of the utmost importance to Moscow, it considered the language of Resolution 2763 to be “highly politicized and unbalanced” because it failed to mention “the attacks on the sovereignty of Yemen” in the form of airstrikes by the US, UK and Israel.

The text of the resolution, which was seen by Arab News, demands that the Houthis immediately cease all attacks against merchant and commercial vessels and release the cargo ship Galaxy Leader and its crew. The Houthis hijacked the vessel in November 2023 and 25 crew members remain detained by the group.

The new resolution also emphasizes the need “to address the root causes of these attacks, including the conflicts contributing to regional tensions and the disruption of maritime security.”

It notes the use of advanced weaponry by the Houthis and demands that UN member states stop supplying the group with arms.

Greece’s permanent representative to the UN, Evangelos Sekeris, told fellow council members that the “Houthis’ constant attacks against vessels are still disrupting international commercial shipping. Maritime security conditions remain degraded and are expected to further deteriorate, while rerouting of shipping companies continues in favor of safer but costlier alternative maritime routes.”

Sekeris lamented that fact that “we are still witnessing the Houthis’ ongoing aggressiveness and escalatory actions through launching unjustified attacks, with the systematic use of advanced weaponry such as anti-ballistic missiles and drones, even against civil infrastructure, including oil terminals under the control of the government of Yemen.”

He added: “The humanitarian repercussions are severe. We need to put an end to this, by looking thoroughly into the origins of the use of advanced weaponry and by preserving the applicability of the targeted arms embargo.”

This year, Greece, which has a keen interest in maritime security, took over from Japan as the co-penholder on the issue of the Red Sea crisis.

Maritime security is also a key concern for Denmark, Pakistan, Panama and Somalia, who took their seats as newly elected nonpermanent members of the Security Council at the start of this year.

Ships owned or operated by companies from Denmark, Greece and Panama have been targeted by the Houthis in the Red Sea, while Pakistan has participated in maritime-security operations in the Western Indian Ocean. Somalia has been dealing with piracy off its coast for several years.

UNITED NATIONS: More than 19.5 million people in Yemen will need assistance in 2025, a senior UN official said Wednesday, expressing concern over a worsening humanitarian crisis and for children suffering from malnutrition.
“People in Yemen continue to face a severe humanitarian and protection crisis,” said Joyce Msuya, interim chief of the United Nations’ humanitarian agency (OCHA).
And the crisis will only get worse, she added, citing the organization’s forthcoming consolidated humanitarian appeal for 2025.
Around 17 million people — nearly half the country’s population — cannot meet their basic food needs, Msuya said.
“At least 19.5 million people in Yemen need humanitarian assistance and protection this year — 1.3 million more than in 2024,” she said.
On top of this, an estimated 4.8 million people remain internally displaced, the majority of whom are women and children.
Nearly half of children under five years old suffer from moderate to severe stunting caused by malnutrition, while the country’s stressed health system is overburdened by “appalling levels” of cholera.
Hans Grundberg, the United Nations special envoy for Yemen, who just visited the capital Sanaa that is controlled by the Iran-backed Houthi militants, stressed the need for “immediate de-escalation and genuine engagement for peace.”
“The need to address Yemen’s crisis becomes ever more urgent as regional stability requires, in part, achieving peace in Yemen,” he said.
Yemen has been at war since 2014, when the Houthis forced the internationally recognized government out of Sanaa. The militants have also seized population centers in the north.
A UN-brokered ceasefire in April 2022 calmed fighting and in December 2023 the warring parties committed to a peace process.
But tensions have surged during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, as the Houthis struck Israeli targets and international shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, in a campaign the militants say is in solidarity with Palestinians.