UN suspends movement in Houthi-held areas after staff detained

The United Nations (UN) says it has suspended all movement in Houthi-held areas of Yemen after a number of UN personnel were detained by the armed group in the capital, Sanaa.

The UN said that it was actively engaging with senior Houthi officials to try to secure the release of all its detained employees. There has been no official statement from the Houthis as yet.

This is not the first time that the group has detained UN workers – a number of staff members were held last year. The Houthis have also detained some 20 Yemeni employees of the US embassy for the past three years.

Human rights groups also accuse the movement of having kidnapped, tortured and held in arbitrary detention hundreds of civilians.

The Iranian-backed Houthis have been fighting a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen for almost a decade. The conflict, which erupted after the Houthis forced out the then Yemeni government, has largely been at a standstill for the past two years.

But the Houthis have drawn renewed international attention with their targeting of ships in the Red Sea and their firing of rockets towards Israel in the past fifteen months, which they say is in support of Hamas and the Palestinians.

Their actions have triggered reprisal strikes on Houthi positions in Yemen from the US, Israel and the UK.

Since the ceasefire in Gaza began, the Houthis have said they will decrease their attacks on shipping and stop firing at Israel if it continues with the truce.

One of President Trump’s first acts on taking office has been, however, to order the Houthis to be put back on the US list of foreign terrorist organisations.

Despite all this, the group remains in control of large areas of Yemen.

The country was the poorest in the Middle East before the war began in 2015. Hundreds of thousands of people have since died in the fighting or from disease and hunger exacerbated by the conflict.

UN agencies provide a vital lifeline for millions of Yemenis with their food and medical aid.

But they have regularly had problems reaching people in more remote areas outside the major towns and cities, with Houthi officials regularly reported to have obstructed the delivery of humanitarian assistance in the regions they control.