Ten soldiers have been killed in fresh fighting with Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen, sources close to government forces told AFP on Wednesday, despite ongoing diplomatic efforts to end the armed conflict in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country that has raged since 2014.

Hostilities have raged in the oil-rich province of Marib, the last stronghold of government troops in the north and the scene of sporadic fighting, even during a cease-fire that had been in effect since April 2022 and was in place until late of last year.

The Houthis, believed to be backed by Iran, attacked a mountainous area and strengthened their forces in the province, two military sources told AFP.

“The Houthis launched an attack against hills overlooking the Harib region, south of (provincial capital) Marib, and advanced on that front, displacing dozens of families,” said one of the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity. not to be named.

“At least 10 soldiers were killed, as well as an unspecified number” of their opponents, the source added. A second government army officer confirmed the account.

The fresh fighting broke out a month after at least four soldiers were killed in clashes with insurgents in the same sector.

It is estimated that there is a risk of erasing the hopes that peace will finally come to the country, which was revived by the announcement on March 10 that Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to restore their diplomatic relations, after 7 years of interruption.

“Political Message”

The Houthis’ capture of the capital Sanaa in 2014 led to the intervention in March 2015 of neighboring Saudi Arabia, which led a military coalition that backed government troops, halting their disorderly retreat.

By launching the attack on Wednesday, “the Houthis sought to send a clear political message”, which is that “the agreement between Tehran and Riyadh does not mark the end” of the war, said the president of the research institute Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies. Majid al-Madaji.

Rebels from the Ansar Allah group — or Houthis, as their leaders call them — who control most of northern Yemen are showing that “the option of conflict” remains on the table and are trying to improve their position in the face of resumption of negotiations, added Mr. Madadzi, speaking to Agence France-Presse.

Against the backdrop of warming relations between the region’s two major powers, the government and the Houthis reached an agreement in Switzerland on Monday to exchange nearly 890 prisoners of war.

“I am happy to announce that the two sides have agreed to a plan to release 887 prisoners,” UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grudberg said on Monday after 10 days of negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (ICRC).

The parties “agreed to meet again in mid-May to discuss a new prisoner exchange,” he added.

The prisoner exchange is good news for hundreds of families in the war-torn country, but “much remains to be done” to end the armed conflict, he warned, however.

The current momentum in the region and “serious diplomatic efforts at various levels” may help move in that direction, Mr Grudberg hopes.

Moreover, yesterday 141 non-governmental organizations, among them Oxfam, Save the Children and CARE International, called on the warring parties to start a “true” peace process “without exclusions”, seeing an “opportunity” to restore peace, as they emphasized in their open letter.

The civil war in the poorest Arab state since 2014 has killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions of civilians and left two-thirds of the population desperate — needing humanitarian aid just to survive — as the situation remains dangerously close, according to the UN. in famine on a massive scale.

A UN-brokered ceasefire agreement that came into effect in April 2022 has de-escalated the hostilities. Although it expired in October, as the parties did not reach an agreement to renew it, the fighting has not become widespread so far, remaining sporadic.