Houthis’ policy of targeting UN staff escalates in Yemen

SANA’A –

Yemen’s Houthi authorities on Thursday detained 10 local United Nations staff members, the UN said, marking the latest in a series of arrests targeting its personnel over several years.

The Iran-backed rebels have repeatedly harassed and detained UN staff and aid workers, accusing them of spying for the United States and Israel, allegations the UN strongly denies. In Yemen, such charges carry the death penalty.

“The arbitrary detention today of 10 UN staff members by the Houthi de facto authorities in Sana’a brings the total number of UN detainees in Yemen to 69,” Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said. All of those detained are Yemeni nationals, he added.

The arrests follow heightened detentions by the Houthis since the onset of the Gaza conflict over two years ago, and most recently after Israeli airstrikes in August destroyed nearly half of the Houthi administration, including the prime minister.

The latest move comes days after Guterres raised the issue of detained UN, diplomatic, and NGO personnel with Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, a mediator in the Yemen conflict. Last week, he said some detainees had been transferred to a special Houthi court and urged the rebels to reverse the detentions.

Houthi courts have previously targeted journalists, NGOs, and political opponents. Rebel media reported last month that a Houthi court sentenced 17 individuals to death by firing squad on charges of spying for Israel, the United States, and Saudi Arabia.

In mid-September, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Yemen was moved from Sanaa to Aden, the capital of the internationally recognised government.

A decade of civil war has left Yemen, the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula, facing one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises, the UN says.