New UN envoy to Yemen to take office early September

UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg will assume his duties from 5 September and will brief the UN Security Council for the first time next month, his office said today.

The 15-member Security Council approved the appointment of Grundberg, a Swedish diplomat, this month to replace Martin Griffiths, who became the UN aid chief.

Grundberg has been the European Union ambassador to Yemen since September 2019. UN officials informally floated his name to council members to solicit views by mid-July and 14 members said they would agree to the appointment, with China saying it needed more time.

All 15-state members of the council needed to approve the appointment.

Yemen received its first UN ambassador in 2011 when then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon dispatched veteran British-Moroccan mediator Jamal Benomar to Sanaa. Benomar was succeeded by a Mauritanian UN official, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, in early 2015, shortly after the civil war erupted; he, in turn, was followed by Griffiths, a British diplomat, and mediator, in 2018.

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