SANAA, March 2 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's Houthi rebels said the convoy of the UN cease-fire monitoring chief Danish general Michael Lollesgaard was attacked in a frontline in the Yemeni Red Sea port city of Hodeidah on Saturday.

"The convoy of Lollesgaard came under fire in the 50th Street while driving back from the Red Sea Mills," the Houthis said in a statement carried by the group-controlled Saba news agency.

The rebels blamed the government troops on the attack. However, there were no comments yet from the Yemeni government in the Saudi capital Riyadh or the United Nations over the rebels' claim.

Lollesgaard was appointed in January by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as the chair of the Redeployment Coordination Committee (RCC) and head of the UN mission in support of the Hodeidah agreement.

Lollesgaard was appointed a week later after his predecessor General Patrick Cammaert was attacked in Hodeidah on Jan. 17.

In December last year, the warring parties reached a peace deal in Sweden brokered by the United nations, which included a cease-fire in Hodeidah and the formation of the RCC to monitor the withdrawal of troops by both the government and the Houthis in the area.

The cease-fire deal went into force on Dec. 18, 2018, but the withdrawal of the rival forces has yet to be fulfilled.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been leading an Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the internationally-recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after the Houthi rebels forced him into exile and seized much of the country's north. Enditem

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