U.N. leaders, ambassadors and agencies are demanding the release of at least 13 U.N. personnel and other aid workers who were detained more than a week ago by Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Late on June 6, reports from groups in Yemen said armed Houthi security and intelligence officers carried out simultaneous raids in Sanaa, Hodeida, Saada and Amran.
The raids targeted Yemeni employees working for the United Nations and other international aid organizations.
On Monday, the head of the Houthi rebel intelligence agency, Major General Abdulhakim al-Khayewani, said the group had arrested members of what he called an “American-Israeli spy” network, which he said had been carrying out espionage in Yemen for decades and was directly linked to the CIA.
He said the spies worked “under the cover of U.N. organizations” and were using “humanitarian work” to conceal their “their espionage and subversive activities."
At a briefing Friday, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, through spokeswoman Liz Throssell, became the latest U.N. official to demand the release of the U.N. workers, which include six from his agency.
In his statement, Türk said that since their detention more than a week ago, the workers have not had contact with their families, nor has the U.N. been able to access them or to receive individual confirmation of their detention.
Türk’s statement followed one issued Friday by Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward, delivered of behalf of 39 U.N. member states and European Union delegation, condemning the detentions and demanding the release of the aid workers.
The leaders of the U.N. agencies and nongovernmental agencies whose workers were detained issued a similar statement Friday, calling the detentions “unprecedented – not only in Yemen but globally.” They said the arrests “directly impede our ability to reach the most vulnerable people in Yemen, including the 18.2 million people who need humanitarian aid and protection.”
The detained workers include Yemen employees of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, the U.N. Development Program, the World Food Program, and the office of the secretary-general’s special envoy to Yemen.
Workers also were detained from the aid groups Save the Children, the Yemeni civil society organization Relief and Development Response, Oxfam, CARE America, and a Yemeni governmental institution, the Social Fund for Development.
At a U.N. briefing Thursday, a U.N. spokesman was asked if there had been any progress in negotiations with the Houthis regarding the aid workers. “We are in touch with the de facto authorities, and we are working to secure their release from detention. I don’t have any progress to report on that,” he said.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.