UN Appoints British Mediator Martin Griffiths as Yemen Envoy
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Sources in New York revealed that the UN has appointed senior international mediator Martin Griffiths as the new envoy to Yemen.
UN Yemen mediator Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed will step down when his current contract finishes at the end of February after nearly three years in the job, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Monday.
"In this moment, his thoughts go first to the Yemeni people who are worn out by this conflict and are enduring one of the most devastating humanitarian crisis in the world," Dujarric said, Reuters reported.
The United Nations appointed Ould Cheikh Ahmed as an international envoy on April 25, 2015, replacing Gamal Benemar, who resigned following the failure of efforts to end the conflict.
Griffiths was the founding Director of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva (HD Centre) where he specialized in developing political dialogue between governments and opposition groups in a range of countries across Asia, Africa and Europe, according to European Institute of Peace.
He also served as Deputy to the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator in New York and as the UN Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Great Lakes and in the Balkans with the rank of UN Assistant Secretary-General.
Yemen’s defenseless people have been under massive attacks by the Saudi-led coalition for almost three years but Riyadh has reached none of its objectives in Yemen so far.
Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia and some of its Arab allies have been carrying out deadly airstrikes against the Houthi Ansarullah movement in an attempt to restore power to fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.
Over 14,000 Yemenis, including thousands of women and children, have lost their lives in the deadly military campaign.
