{"id":190110,"date":"2025-08-31T21:50:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T21:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/190110\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T21:50:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T21:50:03","slug":"iran-backed-houthis-raid-un-offices-in-yemens-capital-and-detain-staffers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/190110\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran-backed Houthis raid UN offices in Yemen\u2019s capital and detain staffers"},"content":{"rendered":"

CAIRO (AP) \u2014 Iran-backed Houthis on Sunday raided offices of the United Nations\u2019 food, health and children\u2019s agencies in Yemen\u2019s capital, detaining 11 U.N. employees, officials said. The rebels tightened security across Sanaa following the Israeli killing of their prime minister and several Cabinet members.<\/a><\/p>\n

Abeer Etefa, a spokesperson for the World Food Program, told The Associated Press that security forces raided the agencies\u2019 offices in the Houthi-controlled capital on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

Also raided were offices of the World Health Organization and UNICEF, according to a U.N. official and a Houthi official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren\u2019t authorized to brief the media. The U.N. official said armed forces raided the offices and questioned employees in the parking lot.<\/p>\n

Ammar Ammar, a spokesperson for UNICEF, said a number of the agency\u2019s staffers were detained, and UNICEF was seeking additional information from the Houthis.<\/p>\n

Both Etefa and Ammar said their agencies were conducting \u201ca comprehensive head count\u201d of their employees in Sanaa and other Houthi-held areas.<\/p>\n

U.N. Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres<\/a> in a statement late Sunday said at least 11 personnel had been detained. He condemned that and the \u201cforced entry into the premises of the World Food Program, the seizure of U.N. property and attempts to enter other U.N. premises in Sanaa.\u201d He called for the immediate and unconditional release of the personnel.<\/p>\n

The raids were the latest in a long-running Houthi crackdown<\/a> against the U.N. and other international organizations working in rebel-held areas in Yemen.<\/p>\n

They have detained dozens of U.N. staffers, as well as people associated with aid groups, civil society and the now-closed U.S. Embassy in Sanaa. The U.N. suspended its operations<\/a> in the Houthi stronghold of Saada in northern Yemen after the rebels detained eight U.N. staffers in January.<\/p>\n

At least 5 ministers confirmed killed in the Israeli strike<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s raids came on the heels of the killing of the Houthi prime minister and several of his Cabinet members in an Israeli strike Thursday. It was a blow to the Iran-backed rebels who have launched attacks on Israel and ships in the Red Sea<\/a> in relation to the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n

Among the dead were Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi, Foreign Minister Gamal Amer, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Local Development Mohammed al-Medani, Electricity Minister Ali Seif Hassan, Tourism Minister Ali al-Yafei and Information Minister Hashim Sharafuldin, according to two Houthi officials and the victims\u2019 families.<\/p>\n

Also killed was a powerful deputy interior minister, Abdel-Majed al-Murtada, the Houthi officials said.<\/p>\n

They were targeted during a \u201croutine workshop held by the government to evaluate its activities and performance over the past year,\u201d a Houthi statement said Saturday, two days after the strike. The Houthis said a funeral for all those killed is scheduled for Monday in Sabeen Square in central Sanaa.<\/p>\n

Defense Minister Mohamed Nasser al-Attefi survived the attack while Abdel-Karim al-Houthi, the interior minister and one of the most powerful figures in the rebel group, didn\u2019t attend the Thursday meeting, the Houthi officials said.<\/p>\n

U.N. envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg expressed \u201cgreat concern\u201d over Israel\u2019s recent strikes in the Houthi-controlled areas following Houthi attacks against Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cYemen cannot afford to become a battleground for a broader geopolitical conflict,\u201d he said in a statement. He called for de-escalation.<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s strike came after the Houthis attacked Israel on Aug. 21 with a ballistic missile that its military described as the first cluster bomb the rebels had launched at Israel since 2023. The missile, which the Houthis said was aimed at Ben Gurion Airport, prompted air raid sirens across central Israel and Jerusalem, forcing millions into shelters.<\/p>\n

The Houthis are likely to escalate their attacks on Israel and ships in the Red Sea, after they vowed in July to target merchant ships<\/a> belonging to any company that does business with Israeli ports, regardless of nationality.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur military approach of targeting the Israeli enemy, whether with missiles, drones or a naval blockade, is continuous, steady, and escalating,\u201d al-Houthi, the group\u2019s secretive leader, said in a televised speech Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAIRO (AP) \u2014 Iran-backed Houthis on Sunday raided offices of the United Nations\u2019 food, health and children\u2019s agencies…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":190111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[97,106316,106320,36676,57,106317,106318,34081,83,99,106315,106319,50,80,89444,1607,1206,47237,103,107,13193],"class_list":{"0":"post-190110","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-2024-2025-mideast-wars","9":"tag-ahmed-al-rahawi","10":"tag-ali-seif-hassan","11":"tag-antonio-guterres","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-hans-grundberg","14":"tag-hashim-sharafuldin","15":"tag-houthis","16":"tag-iran","17":"tag-israel","18":"tag-mohamed-nasser-al-attefi","19":"tag-mohammed-al-medani","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-politics","22":"tag-sanaa","23":"tag-strikes","24":"tag-united-nations","25":"tag-united-nations-childrens-fund","26":"tag-world","27":"tag-world-news","28":"tag-yemen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}