During an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Sunday, the UN special envoy for Yemen, Jamal Benomar, warned that the country is fast approaching “the edge of civil war” and urged all parties to redouble diplomatic efforts before it is too late.

Speaking to the council via videolink, Benomar said that unless immediate steps are taken to save stalled peace talks between Houthi rebels, who are Shiite and now control the capital of Sana’a and the ousted Sunni-dominated government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which has taken up headquarters in the southern port city of Aden, the resulting situation could be similar or worse to the sectarian-violence and proxy-wars that have gripped other countries in the region.

“I urge all sides at this time of rising tensions and rhetoric to de-escalate and exercise maximum restraint, and refrain from provocation,” Benomar said.

With tensions and violence escalating each day, Benomar said that neither faction could realistically take control of the whole country, but that with militants associated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State taking credit for a deadly series of bombings on Friday, he warned that if a negotiated settlement is not found soon or if one side is pushed too far in one direction or the other, it “would be inviting a protracted conflict in the vein of an Iraq, Syria, Libya combined scenario.”

According to the Associated Press:

The UN meeting on Sunday took place as the rebel forces pushed south over the weekend. As Al-Jazeera reports:

On Saturday, the U.S. military ordered the evacuation of approximately 125 special forces soldiers which had been acting as advisers to Yemeni Army forces loyal to Hadi.

“Due to the deteriorating security situation in Yemen, the U.S. government has temporarily relocated its remaining personnel out of Yemen,” State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said in a statement on Saturday.