The Houthis detained 20 United Nations employees working in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, on Oct. 19, a U.N. official said.
Jean Alam, a spokesman for the U.N. resident coordinator for Yemen, told The Associated Press that the terrorist group raided a U.N. facility in Sanaa’s southwestern neighborhood of Hada. Those held include five Yemeni staff and 15 international staff, Alam said. He said a further 11 employees were released after questioning.
The United Nations is in negotiations with the Houthis and other parties “to resolve this serious situation as swiftly as possible, end the detention of all personnel, and restore full control over its facilities in Sanaa,” he said.
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, said on Oct. 17 that remarks by the group’s leadership about United Nations personnel in Yemen were “dangerous and unacceptable.”
He repeated Guterres’s call for the Houthis to immediately release all U.N., diplomatic, and non-governmental personnel who remain in detention, some since 2021.
Dujarric said the Houthis must “evacuate U.N. premises and hand back U.N. assets and equipment seized … pursuant to their obligations under international law.”
The Houthis have previously alleged, without evidence, that detained members of the U.N. and other international groups are spies.
He said the U.N. decision to continue operations in Houthi-held Sanaa put staff at “grave risk.”
“We strongly condemn the recent crime committed by the Iran-backed Houthi terrorist militia, which stormed a United Nations residential compound in the hijacked capital,” he said.
“We affirm that the situation can no longer tolerate mere formal statements of condemnation; it requires concrete and decisive actions to protect humanitarian workers and organizations,” he added, calling on the United Nations to take urgent steps to evacuate staff and transfer its headquarters and operations to Aden.
“We also renew the call for a firm international stance to address these violations and hold the perpetrators accountable.”
He said that the Houthis, during the Oct. 19 raid, had also confiscated all communications equipment from the U.N. residential compound, “in a systematic escalation that violates all international laws and norms, and confirms the militia’s disregard for the international community and its institutions.”
Houthi Campaign
The Houthis, since seizing power in Yemen’s civil war in 2014 and forcing the internationally recognised government into exile, have pursued a long-running campaign against the United Nations and other international organizations in the war-torn country.Dozens of people have been detained so far in Houthi-held areas such as the capital of Sanaa, the coastal city of Hodeida, and the rebel stronghold in Sadaa province in northern Yemen.
According to Dujarric, 53 U.N. staffers remain in detention, some of whom have been held since 2021. A World Food Program worker died in detention earlier this year in Sadaa.
Yemen has been the focus of one of the world’s largest humanitarian operations during a decade of civil war that disrupted food supplies.
Following Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s response, the Houthis launched missile and drone attacks on Israel and ships sailing through the Red Sea, triggering retaliatory airstrikes from Israel.