UN Official: Houthi Attempts to Interfere with Aid Operations Remain Rife

A woman carries an infant child at a waiting room at al-Janatain Charity Medical Center, which helps the impoverished, in Sanaa on March 14, 2023. (Photo by Mohammed HUWAIS / AFP)
A woman carries an infant child at a waiting room at al-Janatain Charity Medical Center, which helps the impoverished, in Sanaa on March 14, 2023. (Photo by Mohammed HUWAIS / AFP)
TT
20

UN Official: Houthi Attempts to Interfere with Aid Operations Remain Rife

A woman carries an infant child at a waiting room at al-Janatain Charity Medical Center, which helps the impoverished, in Sanaa on March 14, 2023. (Photo by Mohammed HUWAIS / AFP)
A woman carries an infant child at a waiting room at al-Janatain Charity Medical Center, which helps the impoverished, in Sanaa on March 14, 2023. (Photo by Mohammed HUWAIS / AFP)

Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator Joyce Msuya has warned that interference by Yemen’s Houthi militias with aid operations “remains rifle.”

“In Houthi-controlled areas, Yemeni female aid workers are still unable to travel without male guardians – both within and out of the country. This is causing serious disruptions in the ability of agencies to assist women and girls safely and reliably,” said Msuya.

She urged the Houthis to lift all such restrictions and to work with the international community to identify an acceptable way forward on this issue.

“In addition, Houthi attempts to interfere with aid operations remain rife. These include efforts to force agencies to select certain contractors for third-party monitoring and assessments,” she said.

In a briefing to the UN Security Council this week, Msuya said that two United Nations staff remain detained in Sanaa following their arrest by the militias in November 2021. She called for their immediate release.

She added that “agencies are also concerned about growing vaccine skepticism, particularly in Houthi-held areas, and the role this is playing in rising rates of vaccine-preventable diseases like measles and polio.”

“Given current levels of malnutrition, we worry that low rates of vaccine coverage will cause even more children to fall sick or die from measles, polio and other diseases.”

She added that many areas in Yemen continue to suffer from insecurity – threatening aid workers and preventing access in some places, especially in Shabwa and Abyan.

“It’s now been more than a year since five UN staff were kidnapped in Abyan. Again, we ask for their immediate release.”

According to the UN official, last year, aid agencies assisted nearly 11 million people every month. “Doing so is much harder than it should be. It often requires many rounds of discussions, leading to numerous delays.”

“But it was and still is possible. We can absolutely keep going – if we have enough money.”

She said the UN knows that donor funds are tight but she “urgently” advocated immediate disbursement of all pledges.



US Envoy Reaffirms Backing for Damascus, Rules Out ‘Plan B’

US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, arrives for a meeting with the Lebanese prime minister at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 07 July 2025. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH
US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, arrives for a meeting with the Lebanese prime minister at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 07 July 2025. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH
TT
20

US Envoy Reaffirms Backing for Damascus, Rules Out ‘Plan B’

US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, arrives for a meeting with the Lebanese prime minister at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 07 July 2025. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH
US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, arrives for a meeting with the Lebanese prime minister at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 07 July 2025. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH

The United States will keep backing Syria’s government and has no “Plan B” to working with it to unite the war‑scarred country back together, still reeling from years of civil war and wracked by new sectarian violence, US envoy Tom Barrack said on Monday.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Barrack – Washington’s ambassador to Türkiye and special envoy for Syria, who is also on a short assignment in Lebanon – called last week’s Israeli strikes inside Syria “badly timed” and said they had “complicated efforts to stabilize the region.”

Barrack spoke in Beirut after more than a week of clashes in Sweida province between Druze militiamen and Sunni Bedouin tribes.

Over the weekend he brokered what he described as a limited ceasefire between Syria and Israel, aimed only at halting the fighting in Sweida. Syrian government troops have since redeployed in the area and evacuated civilians from both communities on Monday, he said.

Barrack told the AP that “the killing, the revenge, the massacres on both sides” are “intolerable,” but that “the current government of Syria, in my opinion, has conducted themselves as best they can as a nascent government with very few resources to address the multiplicity of issues that arise in trying to bring a diverse society together.”

Regarding Israel’s strikes on Syria, Barrack said: “The United States was not asked, nor did they participate in that decision, nor was it the United States’ responsibility in matters that Israel feels is for its own self-defense.”

However, he said Israel’s intervention “creates another very confusing chapter” and “came at a very bad time.”

Prior to the violence in Sweida, Israel and Syria had been in talks over security matters, while the Trump administration had been pushing them to move toward full normalization of diplomatic relations.

When the latest fighting erupted, “Israel’s view was that south of Damascus was this questionable zone, so that whatever happened militarily in that zone needed to be agreed upon and discussed with them,” Barrack said. “The new government (in Syria) coming in was not exactly of that belief.”

The ceasefire announced Saturday between Syria and Israel is a limited agreement addressing only the conflict in Sweida, he said. It does not address broader issues including Israel’s contention that the area south of Damascus should be a demilitarized zone.

In the discussions leading up to the ceasefire, Barrack said “both sides did the best they can” to reach agreement on specific questions related to the movement of Syrian forces and equipment from Damascus to Sweida.

He suggested that Israel would prefer to see Syria fragmented and divided rather than a strong central state in control of the country.

Later Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz posted on X that Israel’s strikes “were the only way to stop the massacre of the Druze in Syria, the brothers of our brothers the Israeli Druze”.

Katz added: “Anyone who criticizes the attacks is unaware of the facts,” he continued. It was not clear if he was responding to Barrack’s comments.

Damascus has been negotiating with the Kurdish forces that control much of northeast Syria to implement an agreement that would merge the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces with the new national army.