ADEN, Yemen, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- A total of 76 people were killed during the period of a cease-fire brokered by the United Nations in December 2018, according to local military observers on Tuesday.
The Houthi rebels controlling the strategic Red Sea port city of Hodeidah have committed 1,112 cases of breach since the beginning of the UN-brokered cease-fire on Dec. 18 last year to Feb. 9, the military observers said in a report released by the state-run Saba news agency.
"Those cease-fire breaches claimed the lives of 76 people, mostly civilians, and injured 492 others, some of them with critical wounds," read the observers' report.
"The Houthis' breaches included the use of various kinds of arms, targeting houses of ordinary citizens, public places and sites of the national army in Hodeidah," according to the report.
The report mentioned the previous attack conducted by the Houthis against a UN mission responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Stockholm Agreement in Hodeidah and "the attack against UN-maintained food warehouses" in Hodeidah.
The report concluded that "the Houthi rebels have also been bolstering their defenses on a large scale, planting landmine and digging underground trenches in the city's entrances and around the key military sites."
On Monday, the official military spokesman of Houthi rebels, Yahya Sarie, said that the Saudi Arabia-led coalition and its local allies do not want to stop the war to achieve peace for the Yemeni people.
The Houthi spokesman said in a statement that "the intensive violations of the aggressive coalition of cease-fire in Hodeidah confirm their desire to prolong the war and create more suffering and siege against the Yemeni people."
Local forces loyal to the Yemeni government forces committed 260 new violations in Hodeidah during the past 48 hours, targeting homes and farms of citizens and positions of the rebels, according to the Houthi military spokesman.
Earlier in the day, the UN special envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths left the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa after a one-day visit aimed at convincing the Houthi rebels to allow the opening of humanitarian corridors in Hodeidah, according to local sources.
Griffiths warned that the grain aid stored in the besieged Hodeidah city to feed over 3 million people is "at risk of rotting," asking the rival parties to allow the UN team to urgently access to the mills to deliver the aid to the extremely needy.
He said the food aid has been inaccessible for more than five months and demanded no further delay.
The four-year civil war has pushed over 12 million people to the verge of starvation and created what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
The warring parties reached a peace deal in Stockholm last December. They have largely held the cease-fire deal in Hodeidah but failed to withdraw their forces.
The rebels continue to fortify themselves inside the city while the government troops have been gathering on the southern and eastern outskirts.
