U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on Friday that he will revoke – effective Feb. 16 – designations of Yemen’s Ansarullah movement as a foreign terrorist organization and a specially designated global terrorist group.

“This decision is a recognition of the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen,” Blinken said in a statement.

Blinken, however, said three of the movement’s leaders – Abdul Malik al-Houthi, Abd al-Khaliq Badr al-Houthi and Abdullah Yahya al-Hakim – will remain subject to U.S. sanctions.

During the last days of Trump’s term, the US state department designated Yemen’s Ansarullah revolutionary movement as a ‘terrorist group’.

Yemen has been under bloody aggression by Saudi-led coalition since March 2015 in a bid to restore power to fugitive president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi who is Riyadh’s ally.

Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have been killed or injured in the strikes launched by the coalition, with the vast majority of them are civilians.

The coalition, which includes in addition to Saudi Arabia and UAE: Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Sudan and Kuwait, has been also imposing a harsh blockade against Yemenis.

Source: Reuters