It was already an awful enough season for humanitarian aid workers, who have faced death and abuse from Gaza to Sudan. During the past two weeks, Yemen’s Houthi rebels added another sorry chapter, detaining a group of 13 Yemeni United Nations aid workers whom they accused of acting as part of a U.S.-Israeli spy ring.
The detentions are part of a broader reported sweep of a total of some 50 Yemeni employees of U.N. agencies, diplomatic missions, private companies, and international and nongovernmental organizations, according to the United States Mission to the United Nations. It follows the detention of four U.N. staff members in 2021 and 2023 who remain in custody.
U.N. officials worry the dragnet is part of an intimidation campaign directed at the thousands of local workers who provide services to international organizations, fueling widespread panic and fear. It is also viewed as a bid to impose greater control over the aid communities’ distribution of billions of dollars in foreign assistance to Yemen, the lowest-income country in the Middle East.