Saudi Arabia Halts Aggressions on Yemen for 48 Hours

"It has been decided to begin a 48-hour ceasefire from 12:00 noon in Yemen's timing (0900 GMT) on Saturday," the kingdom said in a statement. 
 
The statement says the cessation of aggressions will be extended if the Yemeni forces are committed to the conditions of this truce.
 
The Saudi naval and air "blockade", however, will remain in place and surveillance jets will continue to fly over Yemen, the statement added. 
 
The announcement followed a request for a ceasefire by Yemen's resigned president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi -- himself based in Riyadh -- to Saudi King Salman, the statement said.
 
There was no immediate reaction to the announcement by the Ansarullah resistance movement which is fighting the Saudis and its allies in Yemen. 
 
The Ansarullah movement expressed its readiness to observe a ceasefire on Wednesday after US Secretary of State John Kerry said Saudi Arabia and the Houthis had agreed to observe a cessation of hostilities.
 
Saudi Arabia has come under international criticism for the sheer size of casualties and destruction which its war has brought on Yemen since March 2015. The war has killed at least 11,400 civilians, according to a recent tally by a Yemeni monitoring group.
 
In October, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said Saudi Arabia was using starvation as a tactic in its war against Yemen through its crippling blockade which the US helps to implement.