Fisticuffs broke out Thursday at a Geneva press conference by Yemeni rebels when their leader was attacked by a slipper-wielding woman as the UN’s mediator scrambled to revive deadlocked peace talks, AFP reported June 18, 2015.
The dramatic attack underscored the deep divisions between the various sides involved in trying to get Iran-backed rebels and the exiled government to agree to a badly-needed humanitarian truce.
Ansarullah member Hamza al-Huthi, who heads the rebel delegation at the talks, was addressing reporters when a woman in a headscarf barged in and threw a slipper at him.
A woman representative of South Yemen reacts on June 18, 2015 during clash at a press conference on Yemen peace talks held by Yemeni rebels in Geneva
She was quickly joined by six men who shouted slogans against the rebels and started raining blows at them, screaming, “Killers, you are spreading death and disease in South Yemen.”
The woman’s gesture was immediately hailed on social media in Aden, the main port city in South Yemen, with congratulatory tweets.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon launched the high-stakes negotiations on Monday with an appeal for a badly-needed two-week humanitarian truce during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.
The negotiations, in their fourth day, have been bogged down by the government’s insistence that the rebels must withdraw from the vast territory they control, including the capital Sanaa.
It has also protested the size of the rebel delegation which is more than double the agreed number of 10.
