On April 11th, the United Nations (UN) envoys in the Middle East urged Middle Eastern war nations to stop the war immediately. Along with the appeal of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, he urged all parties to take concrete steps in stopping the war. Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, and IsraelPalestinian conflict envoys said solidarity was needed to face the COVID-19 crisis. Their appeal claimed that “the more times like this, the greater the cause and the interests of the people than partisan and narrow-minded interests.”
Guterres said on April 3rd that war parties from 11 countries, including Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Colombia, Libya, Myanmar, the Philippines, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen, responded positively to his appeal for a cease-fire. A two-week cease-fire proposed by the Saudiled coalition backing the U.N.-recognized government went into effect on April 8th in Yemen, the poorest Arab country facing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with the Saudiled coalition backing an UN-recognized government. However, Iranian-backed Houthi Shiite rebels, who control northern Yemen and its capital Sanaa, quickly dismissed the Saudi cease-fire as a ploy to boost its international status and accused the coalition of launching several attacks.