Yemen government calls on UN to move to its base in Aden

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Yemen’s government has called on the United Nations to move its headquarters to the country’s second-largest city, Aden, after Houthi rebels took over the organization’s office in the capital, Sanaa, and detained dozens of international workers.

“We reiterate our call on the United Nations mission, all UN agencies, international organizations operating in Yemen… to immediately relocate their headquarters to the interim capital, Aden, and to the liberated areas,” Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani said on social media platform X on Tuesday.

The Iranian-backed Houthis captured the capital Sanaa in 2014 and took control of most of the country’s major population centres, forcing the internationally recognised government to flee to Aden.

The following year, a Saudi-led coalition intervened to support the embattled government.

On Tuesday, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said rebels entered its office in Sanaa on August 3 and forced staff to hand over office keys and all property.

“This grave incident comes almost two months after the wave of kidnappings launched by the Houthi militia,” Eryani said, adding that it was an escalation of the rebel movement’s “repressive actions against international and humanitarian organizations operating in areas under its control.”

According to the UN, in June, rebels arrested 13 UN staff members, an embassy employee and more than 50 NGO workers. Two other UN human rights office staff members were detained in November 2021 and August 2023.

The Houthis said they had arrested members of an “Israeli-American spy ring” operating under the guise of humanitarian organizations. The UN has strongly denied the accusations.

Eryani called on the international community to “take decisive and dissuasive measures commensurate with the crimes committed by the Houthi militia,” put pressure on it to release detained personnel and “immediately designate the militia as a global terrorist organization.”

The war in Yemen has killed hundreds of thousands and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Fighting has declined significantly since a six-month ceasefire was negotiated by the United Nations in April 2022.

Since November, the Houthis have been attacking international shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, saying they are acting in solidarity with Gaza in the war sparked by their Palestinian ally Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

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