Fifteen international staff with the United Nations have been confined to the U.N. compound in the Yemen’s capital Sanaa since an incursion by the Houthi authorities on Saturday, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Monday.
Sanaa, Yemen © Mena Today
Fifteen international staff with the United Nations have been confined to the U.N. compound in the Yemen’s capital Sanaa since an incursion by the Houthi authorities on Saturday, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Monday.
He said the staff are now free to move around the compound and have been in contact with their families and U.N. agencies, adding: “We hope that they will be free to leave the compound as soon as possible.”
Dujarric said five Yemeni staff who were also detained in the compound since Saturday have been released.
In addition, another 53 U.N. staff remain arbitrarily detained by the Houthis, he said, some since 2021.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke with the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Iran and Oman on Monday about the detentions, Dujarric said.
The Iran-aligned Houthis have controlled most of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, since seizing power in 2014 and early 2015.
The United Nations has repeatedly rejected Houthi accusations that U.N. staff or U.N. operations in Yemen were involved in spying. Dujarric last week described the accusations as “extremely worrying.”
“And accusations, calling U.N. staff spies or, as we’ve seen in other contexts, calling them terrorists - all that does is it puts the lives of U.N. staff everywhere at risk, and it's unacceptable,” he said.
By Michelle Nichols
Iran’s men's national soccer team wore black armbands and held schoolbags as their anthem played ahead of a match in Turkey on Friday in what a team official said was a protest over the killing of schoolgirls on the first day of the Iran war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Friday the signing of a landmark defense cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia, sealed ahead of his meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh.
Ukraine is close to clinching several security agreements — including with the UAE and Qatar — to counter Iranian attacks, its foreign minister said on Friday, adding that he saw scope to draw China into peace efforts to end the war with Russia.
To make this website run properly and to improve your experience, we use cookies. For more detailed information, please check our Cookie Policy.
Necessary cookies enable core functionality. The website cannot function properly without these cookies, and can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.