Houthis Kidnap Aid Workers, Negotiate “Cooperation” with their Officials
Yemen Monitor/Sanaa/Special:
A Houthi official met with officials from the World Food Programme (WFP) and UNICEF in Sanaa to discuss “cooperation and coordination mechanisms,” even as the group’s militants continue to seize the organizations’ headquarters and kidnap their staff.
The Houthi-affiliated news agency reported that Ismail al-Mutawakel, the appointed deputy foreign minister in the group’s internationally unrecognized government, met with WFP’s Special Envoy Abdullah al-Wardat and UNICEF’s Resident Representative Peter Hawkins.
According to the agency, the meeting discussed cooperation and coordination mechanisms between the Houthis and international and UN organizations. They also addressed what the Houthis called “existing problems and ways to solve them, especially those related to monitoring the implementation of humanitarian programs on the ground and ensuring their alignment with national priorities, and overcoming the challenges that stand in their way.”
The Houthi official emphasized the importance of UN organizations committing to “the reference for organizing and monitoring the level of implementation of humanitarian programs and activities, which is represented by the Foreign Ministry, to meet humanitarian needs, unify efforts, avoid duplication, and enhance transparency in implementation.”
For their part, the WFP Special Envoy and the UNICEF Resident Representative affirmed the “importance of enhancing coordination” between the UN and the Houthi authorities at all stages of humanitarian work.
The meeting comes two weeks after tensions began between the Houthi group and UN organizations in Sanaa. The fate of dozens of employees remains unknown, while the group’s militants control the headquarters of both UNICEF and the WFP. The crisis began on August 31, when the Houthi group launched a wide-scale arrest campaign targeting employees of humanitarian organizations, including 22 UN staff members. They were accused of spying for Israel and the United States and of being behind the assassination of the group’s prime minister and 12 other officials by Israel.
This security escalation is an attempt by the Houthis to use the humanitarian file as a political pressure card. The group seeks to impose full control over the work of these organizations, manage the flow of humanitarian aid entering the country, and force them to implement their conditions, including evacuating injured Houthi leaders abroad.
