United Nations calls for the discharge of its staff after Houthi forces raided a facility and detained employees in Sanaa.
Printed On 19 Oct 2025
Yemen’s Houthi authorities have detained about two dozen United Nations staff after raiding one other UN-run facility within the capital Sanaa, the UN has confirmed.
Jean Alam, spokesperson for the UN’s resident coordinator in Yemen, stated employees had been detained contained in the compound within the metropolis’s Hada district on Sunday.
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These held embody at the least 5 Yemeni staff and 15 worldwide personnel. An extra 11 UN employees had been briefly questioned and later launched.
Alam stated the UN is in direct contact with the Houthis and different related actors “to resolve this severe state of affairs as swiftly as attainable, finish the detention of all personnel, and restore full management over its services in Sanaa”.
A separate UN official, who spoke to The Related Press on situation of anonymity, stated Houthi forces confiscated all communication tools inside the power, together with computer systems, telephones and servers.
The employees reportedly belong to a number of UN agencies, amongst them the World Meals Programme (WFP), the kids’s company UNICEF and the Workplace for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The incident follows a sustained crackdown by the Houthis on the UN and different worldwide assist organisations working in territory underneath their management, together with Sanaa, the Pink Sea port metropolis of Hodeidah, and Saada province within the north.
In keeping with UN figures, greater than 50 employees members have now been detained.
Houthis declare UN employees are spying for Israel
The Houthis have repeatedly accused detained UN employees and staff of international NGOs and embassies of espionage on behalf of the USA and Israel, allegations that the UN has denied.
In response to earlier detentions, the UN suspended operations in Saada earlier this yr and relocated its high humanitarian coordinator in Yemen from Sanaa to Aden, the seat of the internationally recognised authorities.
In a press release on Saturday, UN Secretary-Normal spokesperson Stephane Dujarric warned: “We’ll proceed to name for an finish to the arbitrary detention of 53 of our colleagues.”
Dujarric was responding to a televised tackle by Houthi chief Abdelmalek al-Houthi, who claimed his group had dismantled “one of the crucial harmful spy cells”, alleging it was “linked to humanitarian organisations such because the World Meals Programme and UNICEF”. Dujarric stated the accusations had been “harmful and unacceptable”.
Saturday’s raid comes amid a pointy escalation in detentions. Since August 31, 2025, alone, at the least 21 UN personnel have been arrested, alongside 23 present and former staff of worldwide NGOs, the UN stated.
Ten years of battle have left Yemen, already one of many poorest nations within the Arab world, going through what the UN describes as one of many gravest humanitarian crises globally, with thousands and thousands reliant on assist for survival.
