The United Nations today announced a six-day humanitarian pause in fighting in Yemen to bring in urgently needed supplies for millions of desperate people on the brink of famine.
The truce is scheduled to go into effect on Friday at 11:59 pm (2059 GMT) and last until the end of Ramadan on July 17, and the UN hopes that further "confidence-building steps" can be thrashed out between the warring parties if it holds.
It comes more than a week after the United Nations declared Yemen a level-3 humanitarian emergency, the highest on its scale, with nearly half of the country's regions facing a food crisis.
"It is imperative and urgent that humanitarian aid can reach all vulnerable people of Yemen unimpeded and through an unconditional humanitarian pause," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has received assurances from exiled President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi and the Huthi rebels who are fighting his crumbling rule that they will respect the pause, he added.
But the UN spokesman did not specifically state that a Saudi-led coalition which has been bombing the rebels for over three months had pledged to abide by the truce.
"We have the expressions necessary from all parties to announce the start of this pause on Friday, July 10th," said Dujarric.
"It will be very clear come Friday evening whether this pause is respected."
Yemen slid deeper into turmoil when the Saudi-led coalition launched air strikes in late March to stop an advance by the Iran-backed Huthi rebels, who drove the president into exile.
Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies are demanding that the Huthis pull back from territory seized in their campaign and that Hadi be restored to power.
More than 3,200 people have been killed and over one million Yemenis displaced since the air war began.
