The UN is not monitoring Yemen's truce on the ground

Hans Grundberg, the UN envoy to Yemen, said the UN is not monitoring the truce on the ground and has left the implementation to parties concerned, expressing hope that the truce would pave the way for achieving a comprehensive settlement to end the war in Yemen.

The two-month-long ceasefire that took effect on April 2 was meant to stop hostilities across the country, opening Sanaa International Airport, allowing fuel ships into the port at Hodeidah and opening roads in Taiz and many other provinces.

Meanwhile, Yemen’s human rights groups and officials have demanded that international mediators order the Iran-backed Houthis to hand over maps that show the locations of hundreds of landmines across the country.

Even before capturing Sanaa in late 2014, the Houthis planted hundreds of thousands of landmines across the country to block military advances by their opponents.

The landmines have killed and wounded thousands of people, ruined villages and farms, destroyed hundreds of vehicles and barred many displaced people from returning to their houses.

Military officials say the Houthis have randomly and intensively laid the landmines across former battlefields, and locating and defusing them might take years. The biggest number of civilian deaths from landmines was recorded in Taiz where 549 died, followed by Hodeidah, 479, and Marib, 274.

A report prepared by several Yemeni organizations released on Tuesday showed that landmines planted by the Houthis have killed 2,818 people, including 534 children and 177 women, and wounded 3,655 more, including 854 children and 255 women since 2014.

The Yemeni Landmine Monitor said on Wednesday that at least 363 civilians have been killed by Houthi landmines and unexploded ordnances since January last year.