The Yemeni government on Sunday accused the international community of inaction in the face of Houthi terrorism, after the militia group expelled a UN official from Sanaa.
Yemeni Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani said in a statement that the “Iran-linked Houthi terrorist militia has expelled the Deputy Representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Sana, Safir Al-Din Sayed, from its controlled areas.
He said the move is part of Houthi militia’s restrictions on UN agencies in Yemen.
AL-Eryani said this comes three years after the group has banned the OHCHR’s Representative Renaud Detalle, who was appointed in 2020, from entering the agency’s office in Sanaa, just as it did with the former representative Al-Obaid Ahmad.
The Yemeni minister said the Houthi move also came weeks after the group has killed Hisham Al-Hakimi, the security and safety director at the international charity Save the Children. Hakimi was in Houthi detention for two months.
He recalled that three month ago, the militia group kidnapped three UN employees, including two since November 2021 and one since August 2023, not to mention three former and current US embassy staffers.
Al-Eryani condemned Houthis’ actions as having been the result of the failure of the international community, mainly the UN and its agencies, to shoulder their duties to address them.
