Yemen government officials and an aid group report that as many as 18 international aid workers — including nine Yemeni United Nations employees — were taken into custody in a series of raids late Thursday.
In a report on its website, the Mayyun Organization for Human Rights, citing its own sources, reported armed Houthi security and intelligence officers carried out simultaneous armed raids in the Yemen capital, Sanaa, as well as the cities of Hodeida, Saada and Amran.
The group said the raids targeted Yemeni employees working for the United Nations and other international aid organizations, raiding their homes, interrogating them, and confiscating mobile phones and computers before taking them away in military vehicles.
The group said the detained workers included Yemen employees of 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 the Yemeni governmental institution, the Social Fund for Development.
Government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the group’s report to news organizations.
The Mayyun organization condemned “in the strongest terms” the raids and detentions, calling the actions a “dangerous escalation,” which violates the privileges and immunities aid workers are granted under international law.
The group demanded the Houthis reveal the fate of the abductees and called for their immediate release.
The United Nations so far has not commented on the events. One group, Save the Children, issued a statement to the Associated Press, saying it was “concerned of the whereabouts of one of our staff members in Yemen and doing everything we can to ensure his safety and well-being.”
Yemen’s Houthi rebels and their affiliated media organizations did not immediately acknowledge the detentions.
The Iranian-supported Houthis have attacked shipping in the Red Sea, drawing air strikes from the United States and Britain, and they have held about 20 Yemeni employees of the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa for the past three years.
Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
