With ongoing Houthi drone and missile attacks on government-controlled Yemeni areas, United Nations Special Envoy Hans Grundberg has warned that Yemen today faces a more serious risk of return to large-scale conflict than at any point since the 2022 UN-mediated truce.
In a briefing to the UN Security Council on Thursday, Grundberg said there has been an intensification of military activity along frontlines, with recent Houthi attacks in Marib, Hadramout, Mocha and beyond, causing casualties among both military personnel and civilians.
He added that with regional trade and energy flows already under intense pressure from the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, Houthis’ renewed attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, risk deepening Yemen’s entanglement with the wider regional confrontation.
“These attacks also put seafarers’ lives at risk; two days ago, a missile attack on a vessel killed several crew members,” he noted.
The envoy explained that tension had already been mounting prior to these developments.
In July, he said, an unauthorized flight from Tehran toward Sanaa was followed by airstrikes on Sanaa airport, and missile attacks on Abha airport and oil facilities in Saudi Arabia.
He made clear that Yemen stands to lose on the years of relative calm.
“For four years, and well beyond its formal expiry, the truce kept Yemen’s front lines relatively quiet. Remarkably, even through the regional turmoil since 2023, this calm mostly held inside Yemen, giving civilians the most sustained respite since the start of the conflict,” he said.
Grundberg warned that the calm cannot hold indefinitely amid the absent progress on the political process, particularly as Yemen’s state institutions are fragmented by over a decade of conflict, its economy left with little margin to absorb another shock, and the wider region engulfed by war.
Three Ways
The UN envoy proposed three ways to reverse the escalation and forge a credible path to a political solution in Yemen, mainly through de-escalation and working towards a robust ceasefire.
He said the calm along Yemen’s frontlines must be restored, adding that attacks and threats against shipping must stop, and freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden must be upheld while cross-border attacks must stop.
The UN official said a mechanism for managing incidents and de-escalation already exists. “Military representatives from the Yemeni government and Houthis, together with the Saudi-led Joint Forces Command, have previously met under the UN auspices through the Military Coordination Committee.”
Therefore, he urged them to make full use of this channel and repeated his call on the parties to respect their obligations to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure and to protect Yemen from being drawn further into the vortex of the already complex regional dynamics.
According to Grundberg, the second way to reach a political solution in Yemen is economic de-escalation.
He said Yemen’s economy has itself become a frontline, with salaries, currency, trade, revenues, transport and essential services increasingly politicized.
Addressing these issues, he said, will require the parties to negotiate arrangements in which they have more to gain from cooperation than confrontation, adding that resuming oil exports, with appropriate security guarantees for production and export infrastructure, would provide a critical source of income and it would also support the country’s recovery.
Also, commercial vessels must continue to reach Yemeni ports, delivering the food and other essential goods Yemenis depend on, he said.
“The parties will also need to negotiate durable arrangements on the economic issues that touch Yemenis' daily lives more directly, including the payment of civil servant salaries, and the restoration of essential services,” the envoy added.
As for the third requirement, Grundberg said “is sustained engagement with the UN to consolidate these gains and relaunch an inclusive, Yemeni-owned political process.”
He said: “This remains the only credible path to comprehensively ending the conflict, ensuring that differences are resolved through dialogue rather than force, and establishing legitimate and accountable institutions that reflect Yemen’s political and social diversity.”
Therefore, the Yemeni parties must choose dialogue, he said. “No party controls where escalation leads; the only certainty is that the Yemeni people will pay the price,” the envoy noted.
File of Conflict-Related Detainees
Grundberg recalled that in May, the Yemeni parties agreed under UN auspices to release more than 1,600 conflict-related detainees.
Preparations to implement the releases are progressing, albeit slowly, he said, expressing his concerned that the wider escalation could stall this process further.
“I urge the parties to cooperate with the International Committee of the Red Cross to complete the remaining technical and operational preparations as swiftly as possible,” he said.
Grundberg then requested the release of 73 UN personnel, alongside colleagues from non-governmental organizations, civil society and diplomatic missions, arbitrarily detained by Houthis.
“Despite sustained United Nations efforts to find a solution, we have yet to see progress towards their releases. And I urge this Council to maintain its attention and use every available avenue of influence to help secure their immediate and unconditional release,” he said.
