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Yemeni Gov’t Denies Changing Hodeidah Port’s Access Mechanism

The King of Belgium receives in Brussels the head of the Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council (AFP)
The King of Belgium receives in Brussels the head of the Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council (AFP)
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Yemeni Gov’t Denies Changing Hodeidah Port’s Access Mechanism

The King of Belgium receives in Brussels the head of the Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council (AFP)
The King of Belgium receives in Brussels the head of the Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council (AFP)

The Yemeni government denied any change in inspection procedures on ships bound for the Houthi-controlled western Hodeidah port, stressing that the UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism for Yemen was still operational.

Houthis claimed that the inspection mechanism had been suspended.

The government emphasized that it will take deterrent actions against ships that violate government decisions and processes, as well as merchants and shipping brokers that do so.

Moreover, the government expressed its categorical rejection of what it described as the blackmail of commercial and shipping sectors.

It also denounced the Houthis’ tampering with the livelihood of Yemenis through suspension, prevention, and extortion.

Iran-backed terrorist Houthi militias had recently prevented the arrival of shipments of imported goods through the port of Aden and other ports under government control. Those deliveries were bound for Houthi-controlled areas.

The insurgents forced merchants to import goods through the port of Hodeidah, in a move to double their profits from taxes, customs and royalties.

The Ministry of Transportation and Ministry of Commerce and Industry issued a strongly worded statement denying any changes to the government’s agreement with the UN regarding the inspection of ships bound for Hodeidah, and threatening legal action and other punitive measures against violators.

The joint statement affirmed the ministries’ keenness to regulate the movement of trade in various ports in a way that guarantees the ease of the arrival of goods and the efficiency of their transportation and delivery.

Additionally, the Yemeni government warned against believing rumors spread by Houthi militias, noting that those claims are aimed at evading commitments.

Cargo arriving at the port of Hodeidah, primarily fuel shipments, are subject to a UN inspection mechanism that ensures implementing the decision to ban the entry of weapons into areas controlled by the Houthis.

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Displaced Syrians Who Have Returned Home Face a Fragile Future, Says UN Refugees Chief

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
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Displaced Syrians Who Have Returned Home Face a Fragile Future, Says UN Refugees Chief

A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) shows Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (R) meeting with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in the Syrian capital Damascus on June 20, 2025. (SANA / AFP)

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said Friday that more than two million Syrian refugees and internally displaced people have returned home since the fall of the government of Bashar al-Assad in December.

Speaking during a visit to Damascus that coincided with World Refugee Day, Grandi described the situation in Syria as “fragile and hopeful” and warned that the returnees may not remain if Syria does not get more international assistance to rebuild its war-battered infrastructure.

“How can we make sure that the return of the Syrian displaced or refugees is sustainable, that people don’t move again because they don’t have a house or they don’t have a job or they don’t have electricity?” Grandi asked a small group of journalists after the visit, during which he met with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani and spoke with returning refugees.

“What is needed for people to return, electricity but also schools, also health centers, also safety and security,” he said.

Syria’s near 14-year civil war, which ended last December with the ouster of Assad in a lightning opposition offensive, killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million.

Grandi said that 600,000 Syrians have returned to the country since Assad’s fall, and about another 1.5 million internally displaced people returned to their homes in the same period.

However, there is little aid available for the returnees, with multiple crises in the region -- including the new Israel-Iran war -- and shrinking support from donors. The UNHCR has reduced programs for Syrian refugees in neighboring countries, including healthcare, education and cash support for hundreds of thousands in Lebanon.

“The United States suspended all foreign assistance, and we were very much impacted, like others, and also other donors in Europe are reducing foreign assistance,” Grandi said, adding: “I tell the Europeans in particular, be careful. Remember 2015, 2016 when they cut food assistance to the Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan, the Syrians moved toward Europe.”

Some have also fled for security reasons since Assad's fall. While the situation has stabilized since then, particularly in Damascus, the new government has struggled to extend its control over all areas of the country and to bring a patchwork of former opposition groups together into a national army.

Grandi said the UNHCR has been in talks with the Lebanese government, which halted official registration of new refugees in 2015, to register the new refugees and “provide them with basic assistance.”

“This is a complex community, of course, for whom the chances of return are not so strong right now,” he said. He said he had urged the Syrian authorities to make sure that measures taken in response to the attacks on civilians “are very strong and to prevent further episodes of violence.”

The Israel-Iran war has thrown further fuel on the flames in a region already dealing with multiple crises. Grandi noted that Iran is hosting millions of refugees from Afghanistan who may now be displaced again.

The UN does not yet have a sense of how many people have fled the conflict between Iran and Israel, he said.

“We know that some Iranians have gone to neighboring countries, like Azerbaijan or Armenia, but we have very little information. No country has asked for help yet,” he said. “And we have very little sense of the internal displacement, because my colleagues who are in Iran - they’re working out of bunkers because of the bombs.”