The United Nations (UN) confirmed Yemen's Houthi rebels began their withdrawal from three Red Sea ports on Saturday, while a senior pro-government official accused the pullout of being just a show.

UN teams were overseeing the Houthi redeployment in Saleef, used for grain, as other teams headed to the second port of Ras Isa, used for oil, to start implementing the withdrawal, according to the witness.

The rebel pullback is a first step in implementing a hard-won ceasefire deal, the Stockholm Agreement, reached between Yemen's internationally-recognized government and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels late last year in Stockholm, Sweden.

Port pullout: “A flagrant show”

Sources close to the Houthis said that the ports were handed over to coastguard personnel who were in charge before the rebels took over almost five years ago.

However, Yemeni Information Minister Muammar al-Iryani told Reuters the pullout was “a flagrant show”.

“It's an attempt to misinform the international community ahead of a meeting of the U.N. Security Council” on Yemen, he said. “A group of (Houthi) militiamen left and they were replaced by others wearing coast guard police uniforms.”

And the governor of Hodeida, Al-Hasan Taher also said the Houthis were merely reshuffling personnel.

"The Houthis are staging a new ploy by handing over the ports of Hodeida, Saleef and Ras Issa to themselves without any monitoring by the United Nations and the government side," the government-appointed official said.

UN envoy "Martin Griffiths wants to achieve victory even if the Houthis hand over [the ports] to themselves," Taher said.

"This is totally rejected by us, and the agreement must be implemented in full, especially with regards to the identity of the troops that will take over from the Houthis," he added.

Hodeida, the fourth-largest city in Yemen and its port plays a crucial role in allowing food to be imported into the country. In June 2018, it was taken by pro-Hadi government forces and the United Nations has attempted to place the port under UN control due to the humanitarian crisis caused by the conflicts between the Houthi rebels and Hadi forces. 

However, the attempt has been unsuccessful until December last year, in which UN announced the two sides have reached an agreement on a ceasefire.

The woe of the Yemen war

More than 70,000 people have been killed in Yemen's civil war since January 2016, according to the Armed Conflict and Location Event Data Project (ACLED), a database tracking violence in the country. 

The war in Yemen has been at a stalemate for years, with the Saudi-led coalition and Yemeni forces unable to dislodge the Iranian-aligned Houthi rebels from the capital, Sanaa, and other urban centers.

ACLED said it has recorded 3,155 direct attacks that targeted civilians and the UN figures also showed that 30 percent of the civilians were either killed and wounded inside their homes, with non-combatants also targeted when traveling on roads, working on farms and at other civilian sites.

Thankfully, the number of death dropped significantly in Hodeidah due to the ceasefire agreement reached by Yemen's internationally recognized government and Houthi rebels in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, last December.

The Stockholm Agreement lay the groundwork for peace which brought agreements on the exchange of prisoners, a truce in the vital port city of Hodeidah, the establishment of humanitarian corridors in war-torn Taiz, and a handover of the three Red Sea ports (Hodeidah, Al-Salif, and Ras Isa) to the United Nations.

The withdrawal was due to have been finished by January 7 but stalled over a disagreement on who would control the Red Sea port city. 

Years of conflicts 

In 2011, following the Arab Spring uprising, Yemen's longtime authoritarian president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, handed over power to his deputy, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.

The Houthis took control of northern heartland of Saada province and neighboring areas when the new president was so weak and still struggled to hold his stance in the government. Hadi faced a  variety of problems, including jihadists attacks, a separatist movement in the south, government corruption, inequality, unemployment, food insecurity, as well as the continuing loyalty of security personnel to Saleh at the time.

The Houthis and security forces loyal to Saleh, who is an attempt to regain their power, fought together in a bid to take control of the entire country, forcing Mr. Hadi to flee abroad in March 2015.

The coalition gets support from the U.S., the UK, and France, while the Hadi government is believed to be backed by regional Shia power, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and eight other mostly Sunni Arab states.

The war spread in this country, one of the Arab world's poorest countries. 

Militants from al-Qaeda and ISIL also took advantage of the chaos by seizing territory in the south and carrying out deadly attacks, including launching ballistic missiles towards civilians which prompted the Saudi-led coalition to tighten its blockade of Yemen.

In short, Yemen is experiencing the world's worst man-made humanitarian disaster after years of civil war.