The General Director of the Houthi-run Oil Company, Ammar Al-Ada’I, said in a statement published on the company’s Facebook page on Monday that “the UN ship, Maliha entered Yemen without being detained [by the Arab coalition] … carrying 4,489 tons of diesel as humanitarian aid.” The Houthi-controlled areas suffer from a great shortage of fuel while the group accuses both the Arab coalition and the Yemeni government of detaining oil ships and preventing their entry to the port of Hudaydah. Impoverished Yemen has been beset by violence and chaos since 2014, when the Houthis overran much of the country, including the capital, Sanaa. The crisis escalated in 2015 when a Saudi-led military coalition launched a devastating air campaign aimed at rolling back Houthi territorial gains.
