Yemen ceasefire expires amid violations and torture

Yemen’s two day ceasefire, which was announced on Friday, expired this morning and will not be renewed, a Saudi military spokesperson announced on Al-Arabiya.

The ceasefire saw a number of violations from the different sides of the conflict.

The Houthi rebels have accused the Saudi coalition of breaking the truce as they bombed Houthi positions in Sana’a. The Saudis have denied the claims.

Local residents in Taiz have also reported that Houthi and Saleh forces have broken the ceasefire numerous times with the shelling of numerous residential areas.

A kidnapped journalist, Abdul Khaliq Imran, was also refused treatment, even during the ceasefire period in a prison run by Houthi and Saleh militia forces.

His symptoms hint that his spinal cord has been infected after a period of extensive torture by the militia forces. Imran was kidnapped on 9 June last year and has been subject to immense levels of torture since.

Yemen has been locked in a bitter battle between Houthi rebels allied with forces loyal to ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh and government forces led by President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, along with local tribes and resistance forces backed by the Saudi-led coalition.

Nearly 60,000 people have been killed as a result of the conflict and more than three million have been displaced.