CAIRO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th December, 2019) Khartoum has decreased the number of its troops fighting in Yemen on the side of the so-called Arab coalition, led by Saudi Arabia, from 15,000 to 5,000 men, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said on Sunday during a press conference following his return from the United States.
On Thursday, during his talk at the Atlantic Council think-tank in Washington, Hamdok said that the conflict in Yemen did not have a military solution and had to be settled via political means.
"In Yemen [in the beginning of the conflict] there were 15,000 troops from Sudan, now this number has been lowered to five [thousand]," the prime minister said in a speech, broadcast by a Sudanese state-owned tv channel.
Hamdok noted that there had been no discussion of a complete withdrawal of troops and he had only been speaking about a gradual decrease in the number of Sudanese servicemen in Yemen.
Yemen has been engulfed in an armed conflict between the government forces, led by President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi, and the rebel Houthi movement for several years now. A Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out airstrikes against the Houthis at Hadi's request since March 2015.
