Iran Dispatches Ship Carrying Humanitarian Aid to Yemen
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran dispatched a cargo ship carrying humanitarian assistance to war-stricken Yemen on Monday evening, as the Arabian Peninsula country is under siege imposed by the Saudi-led coalition.
The Nejat cargo ship, which belongs to Valfajr Shipping Company, set sail for the Yemeni port of Hodeida.
It is carrying 2,500 tons of humanitarian aid, including food and medicine supplies, for the war victims in Yemen.
Earlier on Thursday, Secretary General of Iran's Red Crescent Society Ali Asghar Ahmadi had said that necessary consultations over the dispatch of the cargo have been made with a number of neighboring countries.
Around 60 Iranian rescuers and volunteer medical doctors, journalists and international anti-war activists have also been dispatched to Yemen aboard the ship.
The move came as Yemen consented to a five-day truce proposed by Saudi Arabia, which will begin on Tuesday.
“We announce our acceptance of the humanitarian ceasefire that will begin on Tuesday,” Colonel Sharaf Luqman, the Yemeni army spokesperson, said in a statement broadcast by Yemen’s Saba news agency.
Any violation of the ceasefire by Al-Qaeda or others would prompt a military response, he stressed.
The ceasefire, which is to allow humanitarian aid in, is to come into force at 11pm (2000 GMT) on Tuesday.
On March 26, Saudi Arabia and some of its Arab allies began to launch deadly air strikes against the Houthi Ansarullah movement in an attempt to restore power to the fugitive former President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.
The Saudi-led coalition announced on April 21 that its military operation "Decisive Storm" has ended, but hours later, air strikes and ground fighting resumed.
