Aug 13 (Reuters) - Yemen faces its most serious threat of a return to large-scale war since a U.N.-brokered truce in 2022, U.N. envoy Hans Grundberg warned on Thursday, as the world body said more than half the country's population was experiencing acute food insecurity.
The warning follows an escalation in hostilities between Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi group and its internationally-recognised, Saudi-backed government that has raised fears of a broader return to war and a fuelling of wider regional tensions.
Grundberg told the Security Council that military activity had intensified along Yemen's frontlines. Recent Houthi attacks in the regions of Marib, Hadramawt, Mocha and elsewhere had caused military and civilian casualties, he said.
He said renewed Houthi attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden risked drawing Yemen further into wider regional confrontation, as regional trade and energy flows were already under pressure from the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, where control is contested in the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
Grundberg called on the parties in Yemen's conflict to immediately de-escalate and work towards a robust ceasefire, saying attacks and threats against shipping as well as cross-border attacks must stop. He said a negotiated "off-ramp" remained possible and urged countries with influence over the parties to steer Yemen back towards negotiations.
The security deterioration has coincided with a worsening of Yemen's humanitarian crisis.
U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the council that more than half the population faced acute food insecurity, while 6 million people were at "Emergency" levels of food deprivation bordering on famine.
Both Grundberg and Fletcher called for the release of 73 U.N. personnel detained by the Houthis, along with workers from non-governmental organisations, civil society and diplomatic missions. Grundberg also said preparations to free more than 1,600 conflict-related detainees agreed in May were moving slowly and could be derailed by the wider escalation.
On July 20, the Houthis announced a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea in response to what they described as a Saudi siege of Yemen, an allegation Riyadh denies. A Saudi-led coalition responded with air strikes on what it said were Houthi military facilities in the port city of Hodeidah linked to threats against commercial shipping.
Yemen has been mired in conflict since the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa in 2014, prompting a Saudi-led military intervention the following year. Although the U.N.-brokered truce in 2022 largely halted major fighting, despite expiring six months later, efforts to turn it into a lasting political settlement have stalled as regional tensions have intensified.
(Reporting by Enas Alashray and David Brunnstrom; Editing by William Maclean)
