Guterres also called for “restraint” on all sides in seven-year conflict following reports concerning Yemen´s Houthi rebel attacks on an oil plant and airstrikes by Saudi-led coalition forces on the capital Sana´a and the port city of Hodeida.

“The secretary-general strongly condemns the recent escalation of the conflict in Yemen,” UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said in a statement Saturday.

Figures updated by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reported that over 20 million Yemenis, out of a 30.5M population, were barren of access to basic health care and around 16.2 million suffer from food shortages.

Hostilities started off in 2014, as the Houthis took up arms and seized large parts of the country, including Sana’a, and a year later, in March 2015, the Saudi-led coalition got in on the act in support of President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

ef/pll/acl/dfm