Yemen warns foreign investors in Saudi Arabia, UAE to leave as truce ends

In a Twitter post early on Wednesday, a spokesman for the Yemeni armed forces urged the foreign firms stationed in the two “aggressor” countries who are involved in the devastating war in Yemen to move their operations to other “less risky” countries in order to prevent “further losses”.

“You must transfer your investment from an aggressor country to a less risky one in order to prevent further losses. Examples of such countries include the #UAE and #Saudi Arabia,” Brigadier General Yahya Sare’e wrote.

Earlier, Sare’e had warned oil companies operating in Saudi Arabia and the UAE to pack up and leave as the warring sides in Yemen failed to reach an agreement to extend the UN-brokered truce.

The initial two-month ceasefire, the first since 2016, began on April 2 and was renewed twice.

“As long as the American-Saudi aggression countries are not committed to a truce that gives the Yemeni people the right to exploit their oil wealth in favor of the salary of the Yemeni state employees, the armed forces give oil companies operating in the UAE and Saudi Arabia an opportunity to organize their situation and leave,” he tweeted on Sunday evening, adding “forewarned is forearmed.”

“If the Saudi and Emirati coalition continue to deprive our Yemeni people [of] access to their resources, our military forces can, with God’s help, deprive them of their resources,” the Yemeni military spokesman added.

In a statement, United Nations Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg called on all Yemeni sides to refrain from acts of provocation as negotiations are continuing, after an October 2 deadline for extending the UN-brokered truce expired.

Grundberg said efforts to extend and expand the ceasefire for a further six months had not been successful.

“The UN special envoy regrets that an agreement has not been reached today, as an extended and expanded truce would provide additional critical benefits to the population,” the statement read.

“I urge (the warring parties) to fulfill their obligation to the Yemeni people to pursue every avenue for peace,” the Swedish diplomat was quoted as saying.

Yemen’s popular Ansarullah resistance movement said in a statement on Saturday that the ceasefire was at “a dead end.”

“Over the past six months, we haven’t seen any serious willingness to address humanitarian issues as a top priority,” the statement said, denouncing the Saudi-led coalition of failing to agree measures to “alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people.”

Saudi Arabia launched the devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with its Arab allies and with arms and logistics support from the US and other Western states.

The objective was to reinstall the Riyadh-friendly regime of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and crush the popular Ansarullah resistance movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of a functional government in Yemen.

While the Saudi-led coalition has failed to meet any of its objectives, the war has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.