UN chief Guterres condemns Houthi detention of 10 more UN staff in Yemen

Antonio Guterres, the head of the Houthis’ detention of 10 additional UN staff members, has condemned their detention in Yemen.

The number of detained local staffers who had been detained by a spokesperson for Guterres increased to 69 on Friday, and they were requested to have them released right away.

“These detentions make it impossible for UN humanitarian aid to be delivered to Houthi-controlled areas.” Millions of people in need are directly impacted, according to Dujarric, and this restricts their ability to receive life-saving aid.

Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, the Houthis have increased their arrests of UN employees, accusing them of spying for the United States and Israel. They now control most of northwestern Yemen, including Sanaa, the capital.

Houthi accusations that the UN’s staff or operations in Yemen are spies are consistently refuted by the UN, which carries the death penalty.

The organization confirmed on Thursday that the detainees were all Yemenis.

The UN, diplomatic, and non-governmental staff were detained after Guterres discussed the latest arrests with Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, who had mediated the conflict in Yemen.

Guterres also made a comment about the Houthis’ recent referral of three detained UN staffers to a criminal court, claiming they had been charged with “their performance of United Nations official duties” and calling for the charges to be dropped.

shift in the power balance

Yemen has become one of the worst humanitarian crises in history, according to the UN, after a decade of civil war.

Nearly two-thirds of the country’s population, or 19.5 million people, need humanitarian aid, according to Guterres, who stated this week.

Separatists with the Southern Transitional Council (STC) have recently entered a new phase of the conflict, marking one of the largest power shifts since the start of the conflict.

They now assert control of the port city of Aden and the oil-rich Hadramout and al-Mahra governorates in eastern Egypt.

The STC has previously fought the Houthis against the internationally recognized, Saudi-backed government, which is based in Aden.

The STC’s advance in the south, however, raises a direct conflict with the Aden government, known as the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), which had previously criticized the seizure of territory as “unilateral and a blatant violation”.

Aidarous al-Zubaidi, the STC’s leader, is formally one of its vice chairmen.

However, the international renowned government has frequently had shaky relations with the group, which was under significant pressure this year due to power outages and a currency crisis.

In Aden and its surrounding governorates in 2018, the two organizations have previously engaged in combat, most recently in 2018 and 2019.