[Published: Monday December 03 2018]
 UN evacuates wounded Yemeni rebels
SANAA Poland 3 Dec (ANA) - A UN plane carrying wounded Houthi rebels has left the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, and is heading for Oman, paving the way for planned peace talks after nearly four years of civil war.
The move, approved by the Saudi-led military coalition, will see 50 rebels receive treatment later on Monday.
UN-sponsored talks between the rebels and the Saudi-backed government are expected to start in the coming days.
The war has caused the world's worst humanitarian crisis in recent times.
In nearly four years of conflict in Yemen, thousands of people have been killed in fighting and millions have been pushed to the brink of starvation.
On Monday, the UN charter flight left Sanaa at about 18:00 local time (15:00 GMT), AFP news agency reports, citing sources.
The UN had appealed to the Saudis to allow the evacuation.
A coalition spokesman said overnight that the move had been requested by the UN special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, and had been agreed as a confidence-building measure ahead of discussions in Sweden.
The UN has been trying to revive talks between the government led by President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi and the Iranian-backed Houthis who control much of the north.
A previous round in Geneva collapsed in September when the Houthis failed to show up.
Yemen has been devastated by a conflict that escalated in early 2015, when the Houthis seized control of much of the west of the country and forced President Hadi to flee abroad.
Alarmed by the rise of a group they saw as an Iranian proxy, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and seven other Arab states intervened in an attempt to restore the government.(ANA)
FA/ANA/3 December 2018-------
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