The United Nations announced on Monday that it was suspending all humanitarian operations in a large Houthi-controlled area in northern Yemen in response to the arbitrary detention of its staff, which it said created hostile conditions for aid work.
The U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, made the decision because the Houthis detained eight more U.N. staff members in late January, bringing the total arrested since 2021 to 24, said Farhan Haq, a U.N. spokesman.
Mr. Haq said the Houthis had violated an agreement reached in December with the U.N. to stop detaining the global agency’s staff and to find a pathway to releasing those in their custody. Less than a month later, the group arrested eight more workers on murky charges of espionage and foreign intervention.
“This extraordinary and temporary measure seeks to balance the imperative to stay and deliver with the need to have the safety and security of the U.N. personnel and its partners guaranteed,” the U.N. said in a statement.
The U.N. also said it had stopped all staff travel to Houthi-controlled areas after the detentions.
The Houthis, the de facto rulers of parts of Yemen including the capital, Sana, are backed by Iran. They have been engaged in a campaign of kidnappings and detention of hundreds of people who work for the U.N. and foreign nongovernment agencies, along with dozens of current and former Yemenis employed by the U.S. government, according to the U.N.
The U.N. did not clarify how many Yemenis were affected by the suspension of its humanitarian aid operation, which it said included providing food, clean water and medical kits. But the U.N. identifies Yemen as having the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with 80 percent of its 24.1 million people in need of essential aid and three million displaced.
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