Saudi Arabia ends its blockade of Yemen’s ports and airports after international condemnation they would cause millions to starve
- Saudi Arabia will open borders to Yemen after week-long blockade
- Airports and seaports blocked after intercepted missile attack
- UN warned blockade would lead to millions of Yemeni starving
- Saudi Arabia is leading coalition fighting rebels in Yemen
The Saudi Arabia-led coalition fighting in the Yemeni civil war will begin reopening the country's airports and seaports after the United Nations warned that its blockade would lead to mass famine.
The coalition shut down Yemen's borders and halted aid deliveries last week in response to a missile attack by Yemen's Huthi rebels that was intercepted near the Riyadh airport.
The UN and more than 20 aid groups raised the alarm, saying it could bring millions of people closer to 'starvation and death'.

Crisis: Yemenis wait to collect drinking water from a donated water pipe in Sanaa, Yemen, after the UN warned that Yemen faces the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, unless the Saudi-led military coalition would not lift the blockade
The announcement to lift the blockade, implied on November 4, was made in a statement by a Saudi mission at the United Nations .
'The first step in this process will be taken within 24 hours and involves reopening all the ports' in areas controlled by Yemen's internationally recognised government, which the coalition back.
Those ports are in Aden, Mocha and Mukalla. For ports in rebel-held or disputed territories, such as Hodeida, the mission said it had asked the UN to send a team of experts to discuss ways to make sure weapons could not be smuggled in.
The Saudi-led coalition hopes that will prevent 'the smuggling of weapons, ammunition, missile parts and cash that are regularly being supplied by Iran and Iranian accomplices to the Houthi rebels,' the statement said.

Heartbreaking: A malnourished Yemeni child receiving treatment at a hospital in the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah last week

Cut off: Motorcyclists crowd at a gas station amid fuel supply shortage in Sanaa
Both Saudi Arabia and the United States have accused Iran of supplying the ballistic missile used in that attack, saying the missiles bore 'Iranian markings
However, Iran has denied offering any arms to Yemen, though it has backed the Houthis and highlighted the high civilian casualties from the Saudi-led coalition's campaign of airstrikes.
Some 17 million Yemenis are in desperate need of food, seven million of whom are at risk of famine and cholera causing more than 2,000 deaths.
On Tuesday, a Red Cross shipment of chlorine tablets, which are used for the prevention of cholera, was blocked at Yemen's northern border, the International Committee for the Red Cross said.
The Saudi-led Arab military coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 to support President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi after the Huthis forced him into exile.
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