ADEN: Yemen’s new leaders took a ceremonial oath of office under tight security on Tuesday, completing a major shake-up aimed at ending seven years of war with Ansar Allah fighters.
The newly formed, eight-man leadership council performed a largely symbolic swearing-in in Aden in front of members of a parliament elected in 2003, as hundreds of soldiers patrolled the southern city, a government official said.
Ex-president Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, who fled to Saudi Arabia when the war started in 2015, handed over his “full powers” to the new council in a televised address on April 7.
The ceremony was not announced in advance and was held at an undisclosed location for security reasons. In December 2020, about 20 people died in an attack on Aden airport as government officials arrived. Ansar Allah fighters took over the capital Sanaa in 2014, prompting a military intervention the following year and a war that has caused the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations.
A fragile, UN-brokered truce has been holding since April 2, the start of Ramadhan, providing a rare respite from fighting.
UN special envoy Hans Grundberg attended the swearing-in, along with ambassadors from European and Arab countries, the government official and parliament members said.
Meanwhile, Ansar Allah fighters have agreed to stop using child soldiers, the United Nations said, after thousands of under-age fighters were recruited for the seven-year civil war.
The Ansar Allah will release all child soldiers within six months under a new action plan, the UN said, adding that the warring parties have all now committed to ending “grave violations” against children. There was no immediate comment from the Ansar Allah about the agreement, which was signed after a fragile, UN-brokered truce started on April 2.
Nearly 3,500 child soldiers have been identified and more than 10,200 children have been “killed or maimed” since the war started, the UN said. – AFP