DOHA, February 11. /TASS/. An employee of the UN World Food Program (WFP), who had been detained by Yemeni Houthis from the Ansar Allah movement, has died, the agency said in a statement on its X page.
"WFP is grief-stricken and outraged about the death of a staff member while in detention in northern Yemen," the statement reads. "He is one of seven national staff arbitrarily detained by local authorities since January 23," WFP clarified.
The unnamed Yemeni national had been working for the organization since 2017. His wife and two children have therefore lost their loved one.
On January 24, Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General, stated that the Houthis had detained several UN employees. In response, the world organization "suspended all official movements into and within areas" under the control of Ansar Allah.
In early June 2024, the UN secretary-general’s office reported that 11 Yemeni nationals working for UN agencies had been detained by the Houthis. At the time, two Yemeni government officials told TASS that the Houthis had detained several UN employees, along with staff from other international humanitarian organizations, including Save the Children and Oxfam, during a series of raids in the Amran, Saada, Sana’a, and Hodeida governorates.
In late December, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus traveled to the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, to negotiate the release of UN staff and assess the country’s humanitarian situation.