The United Nations has called for the immediate release of 11 United Nations personnel detained by Yemen’s Houthi movement.
The employees were taken away from different parts of the conflict-torn country in what appeared to be a coordinated crackdown.
United Nations spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said the United Nations is pursuing all available channels to ensure their safe and unconditional release as soon as possible.
The armed group sees itself as part of the Iranian-led “axis of resistance” against Israel, the United States and the wider West, and has declared support for the Palestinians in Gaza.
The Houthis have been targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea, prompting retaliatory airstrikes from the United States and its allies.
Several employees of other international organizations were also detained, the report said, citing officials from the internationally recognized Yemeni government.
Phones and computers have been seized in raids on workers’ homes and offices months after the Houthis attacked commercial ships in the Red Sea.
The Ma Human Rights Group said Houthi intelligence agents simultaneously targeted 18 aid workers from multiple organizations in Amran, Hodeidah, Saada and Sana’a.
Multiple members of the U.S.-backed National Democratic Institute (NDI) were targeted, officials told Reuters.
The detentions illustrate the risks to aid workers in a country where a decade-long civil war has reportedly killed more than 150,000 people and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Their arrival comes as the Houthis face growing economic difficulties and air strikes from the U.S.-led coalition.
The armed group controls Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, and the country’s northwest, running a de facto government that collects taxes and prints money.
Yemen’s internationally recognized government is based in the southern port of Aden.
