UPDATE - ICRC Started Foreign Staff Redeployment To Yemen - Aden Mission Head

Faizan Hashmi Published November 23, 2018 | 12:36 AM

GENEVA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd November, 2018) The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has begun the redeployment of the foreign personnel to Yemen, but still relies primarily on the local contingent, Carlos Batallas, the head of the ICRC mission to Aden, told Sputnik on Thursday.

In June, the ICRC withdrew 71 foreign personnel from Yemen over security concerns.

"The situation is getting worse, and humanitarian aid is even more needed ... We are now bit by bit bringing back people to Yemen since last 2-3 months to various specific positions. It is not back to normal, because I do not think that we will be able to go back to normal in few months, if not years," Batallas said.

According to Batallas, a total of 557 ICRC employees are currently working in Yemen, with 516 accounting for local specialists.

"The good thing is that we work a lot with our local staff, with our colleagues from Yemen. And they have quite a good level of professionalism," Batallas stated, adding that local staff were enough to carry out humanitarian operations.

He stressed that in the absence of a political solution, Yemen's humanitarian needs can hardly be addressed.

"Even if all humanitarian organizations will start to work today in Yemen, we will not be able to meet all the needs, it is simply not possible ... So what we need here is that there is a political solution," Batallas indicated.

He also recalled the need to ensure a lasting ceasefire in the country and the passage of humanitarian cargo through the embattled Yemeni port city of Al Hudaydah, controlled by the Houthi militants.

Yemen has been gripped by a civil war between the government and the Shiite Houthi movement since 2015. The government backed by the Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out airstrikes that target areas controlled by the Houthis since March 2015. The almost four-year war has become the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with half of the Yemeni population assessed by the UN as being on the brink of starvation.