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Yemen Reinforces Security Around Offices of Int’l Organizations in Southern Taiz

Security forces have detained 20 people in connection to the assassination. (Yemeni security media)
Security forces have detained 20 people in connection to the assassination. (Yemeni security media)
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Yemen Reinforces Security Around Offices of Int’l Organizations in Southern Taiz

Security forces have detained 20 people in connection to the assassination. (Yemeni security media)
Security forces have detained 20 people in connection to the assassination. (Yemeni security media)

Authorities in the Yemeni city of Taiz and surrounding areas have stepped up security measures around the offices of international organizations and have approved a ban on carrying weapons.

The new measures were introduced days after a World Food Program (WFP) staff member was shot and killed by unknown gunmen in Turbah in southern Taiz.

Official sources revealed that Taiz Governor Nabil Shamsan and members of the security committee met in the southern Taiz countryside and approved the tightened measures and weapons ban.

They agreed to boost security checkpoints at the entrances and exits of the city to help further strengthen security measures.

The officials discussed Moayad Hameidi’s assassination and the latest progress in the investigation into it.

The Taiz governor later met with UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen David Gressly as part of efforts to contain the fallout from the assassination and assure relief groups over their work in Yemen.

He was briefed on the security measures adopted by the police and security forces to arrest the suspects, revealing that 20 people have been detained in connection to the crime.

Shamsan told Gressly that local authorities are keen on involving UN investigators in the probe and will brief them on the latest developments until the perpetrators are found.

He hoped that the killing will not affect humanitarian work in Taiz.

For his part, Gressly stressed the need to strengthen security measures and prevent similar incidents that may impact humanitarian work and the delivery of aid.

Meanwhile, the family of the primary suspect in the murder, Ahmed Youssef al-Sarra, denied his involvement. They said they have proof that he was in the al-Fayoush region in the Lahj governorate at the time of the crime.

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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)

The Trump administration has notified the World Food Program and other partners that it has terminated some of the last remaining lifesaving humanitarian programs across the Middle East, a US official and a UN official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The projects were being canceled “for the convenience of the US Government” at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency whom the Trump administration appointed to oversee and finish dismantling the US Agency for International Development, according to letters sent to USAID partners and viewed by the AP.

About 60 letters canceling contracts were sent over the past week, including for major projects with the World Food Program, the world’s largest provider of food aid, a USAID official said. An official with the United Nations in the Middle East said the World Food Program received termination letters for US-funded programs in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Some of the last remaining US funding for key programs in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and the southern African nation of Zimbabwe also was affected, including for those providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war, the USAID official said.

The UN official said the groups that would be hit hardest include Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. Also affected are programs supporting vulnerable Lebanese people and providing irrigation systems inside Syria, a country emerging from a brutal civil war and struggling with poverty and hunger.

In Yemen, another war-divided country that is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, the terminated aid apparently includes food that has already arrived in distribution centers, the UN official said.

Aid officials were just learning of many of the cuts Monday and said they were struggling to understand their scope.

Another of the notices, sent Friday, abruptly pulled US funding for a program with strong support in Congress that had sent young Afghan women overseas for schooling amid Taliban prohibitions on women’s education, said an administrator for that project, which is run by Texas A&M University.

The young women would now face return to Afghanistan, where their lives would be in danger, according to that administrator, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration had pledged to spare those most urgent, lifesaving programs in its cutting of aid and development programs through the State Department and USAID.

The Republican administration already has canceled thousands of USAID contracts as it dismantles USAID, which it accuses of wastefulness and of advancing liberal causes.

The newly terminated contracts were among about 900 surviving programs that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had notified Congress he intended to preserve, the USAID official said.

There was no immediate comment from the State Department.