Houthi rebels raided offices of the United Nations’ food, health and children’s agencies in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, Sunday, detaining at least 11 U.N. employees, officials said.
Abeer Etefa, a spokesperson for the World Food Program, told The Associated Press that security forces raided the agencies’ offices in the Houthi-controlled capital Sunday morning.
Also raided were offices of the World Health Organization and UNICEF, according to a U.N. official and a Houthi official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to brief the media.
The U.N. official said armed forces raided the offices and questioned employees in the parking lot.
Ammar Ammar, a spokesperson for UNICEF, said a number of the agency’s staffers were detained, and UNICEF was seeking additional information from the Houthis.
Both Etefa and Ammar said their agencies were conducting “a comprehensive head count” of their employees in Sanaa and other Houthi-held areas.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres in a statement late Sunday confirmed that at least 11 personnel had been detained. He condemned their detentions and the “forced entry into the premises of the World Food Program, the seizure of U.N. property and attempts to enter other U.N. premises in Sanaa.”
Guterres strongly reiterated his demand for the immediate and unconditional release of those detained, as well as all other personnel from the United Nations, international and national non-governmental organizations, civil society and diplomatic missions who have been arbitrarily detained since June 2024 and those held since 2021 and 2023.
He described the continued arbitrary detention of all such persons as “intolerable”, adding “The personnel of the UN and its partners must never be targeted, arrested or detained while carrying out their duties for the UN. The safety and security of UN personnel and property as well as the inviolability of UN premises must be guaranteed at all times”.