UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik) —The United Nations evacuated its entire staff from the war-torn Yemen amid ongoing hostilities in the country, Deputy Spokesman for the UN Secretary-General Farhan Haq said on Tuesday.
Yemen is currently suffering from an armed confrontation between the Houthi rebel group, the main opposition force in Yemen, and forces loyal to the country's president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who has fled the country. Last week, the Saudi Arabia-led coalition began conducting airstrikes on Houthi positions on Hadi's request.
Haq stressed that the international stuff was temporally relocated to Djibouti and Ethiopia and will return to the country as soon as the security circumstances permit. He added that Jamal Benomar, the UN Special Adviser on Yemen, was also staying outside Yemen.
The UN started the evacuation of its staff from the Yemeni capital of Sanaa last Saturday.
The ongoing Saudi Arabia-led coalition's military operation aims to defeat the Houthis, who are supporters of ex-Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, and restore ousted president Hadi's government to power.
