A/HRC/42/CRP.1 (b) Lack of access to the Red Sea Mills, al-Hudaydah city 506. The Red Sea Mills is a wheat storage and processing site located in al-Hudaydah city. Before the conflict engulfed al-Hudaydah, the mills contained 51,000 metric tons, or a quarter of WFP’s in-country stock, enough wheat to feed 3.7 million people for one month.818 507. In August/September 2018, the frontlines of the fighting reached the mills. Thereafter, access to it required agreement from both sides of the conflict. From September 2018, WFP lost access to the site and was forced to use other wheat stocks as well as to import additional wheat to cover the food needs of the Yemeni population. Citing the everincreasing potential for spoilage of the wheat as time passed, access to the site was a constant United Nations advocacy point. The continued refusal by the Houthis to provide access to the site in the aftermath of the ceasefire brokered as part of the Stockholm Agreement lacked a clear justification. 508. The Houthis were responsible for denying access to the site from January 2019 to May 2019. The access from al-Hudaydah required crossing front lines from the Houthi controlled areas in al-Hudaydah to the Government of Yemen controlled area. While the Government of Yemen agreed to allow the United Nations access from January 2019, the Houthis did not. The Houthis stated that the reason for such denial was due to security concerns. They feared that an incident may happen to the United Nations upon arrival at the site or during the frontline crossing, which then would be blamed on them. The Houthis stipulated that for access to be granted, an investigation team needed to be attached to the WFP team that would immediately investigate any security incident that took place. 819 509. On 5 May 2019, a technical team led by WFP regained access to the Red Sea Mills upon the Houthi’s consent. The team, which travelled from Aden, were to have long-term access to the site. According to WFP, at the time of finalization of this report, the status of the Red Sea Mills’ supply was still not clear, as the total quantity of wheat that would be fit for human consumption was still to be determined.820 510. In addition to being inaccessible, there were reports that the Red Sea Mills had been mined. WFP accused the Houthis of entering the facility and planting landmines inside. 821 Only on 5 May 2019 did the Yemeni Executive Mine Action Centre (YEMAC) declare the entire Red Sea Mills compound free of landmines.822 (c) Violations 511. A siege823 is not per se prohibited by international humanitarian law, as long as its purpose is to achieve a military objective, and that it does not violate other rules, such as the prohibition to starve the civilian population.824 As a corollary to the prohibition of starvation, it is also prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, for the purpose of denying them for WFP “WFP gains access to vital wheat stocks needed for Yemen's hungry people” Available at: https://www1.wfp.org/news/wfp-gains-access-vital-wheat-stocks-needed-yemens-hungry-people 819 Confidential Sources on File. 820 WFP, “World Food Programme accesses Yemeni frontline district for first time since conflict began” 31 May 2019. Available at: https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/world-food-programmeaccesses-yemeni-frontline-district-first-time-conflict-began. 821 https://twitter.com/camanpour/status/1064583183465775105. 822 UNDP “Red Sear Mills Free of Explosives for the First Time in Eight Months” 15 May 2019. Available at: http://www.ye.undp.org/content/yemen/en/home/stories/red-sea-mills-free-ofexplosives-for-the-first-time-in-8-months-.html. 823 The term “siege” is not defined by international law, but can be understood as “the military encirclement of an area with the imposition of restrictions on the entry and exit of essential goods with the aim of forcing its surrender” (see International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law Relevant to Siege Warfare, OHCHR, January 2017, https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/sieges_legal_note_-_final_-_en_1.pdf). 824 Art. 14 Additional Protocol II, see also ICRC Customary IHL Study, rule 53. 818 125