UN envoy in Riyadh to meet Yemen govt ministers

The United Nations' envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths met with Yemen's internationally recognized government in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Wednesday.

The visit comes as the envoy struggles to make another attempt to bring both sides of the country's civil war to some sort of peace agreement, as fighting continues unabated in the country's north amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Last month, Griffiths told the UN Security Council that UN-mediated peace negotiations between the rebels and government have failed to produce an agreement.

Airstrikes over the past month in the country's north have inflicted dozens of civilian casualties.

Griffiths warned the council the country's economy is collapsing, food prices are surging, and, to make matters worse, an abandoned oil tanker moored off Yemen's Red Sea coast loaded with more than a million barrels of crude oil is at risk of rupture or exploding.

On top of that, the country is grappling with the coronavirus with a massively depleted healthcare system.

Yemen's conflict erupted late in 2014 when the Iran-backed Houthi rebels swept across much of the north and seized the capital, Sanaa, forcing the internationally recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi into exile.

The following year, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states formed a coalition to fight the Houthis in what they said was an effort to stop Iran's growing sway in Yemen.

The conflict has killed more than 100,000 people and created the world's worst humanitarian disaster, with more than three million people internally displaced and two-thirds of the population relying on food aid for survival.