Dubai. Houthi rebels, facing increasing financial pressure and air strikes from the US-led coalition, have taken at least nine Yemeni employees of UN agencies hostage, officials said on Friday. They said that others working for aid groups are also feared to be taken hostage. This incident has happened at a time when Houthi rebels captured the Yemeni capital nearly a decade ago and have been fighting with the Saudi-led coalition since then. Houthi rebels have targeted ships in the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
But as it has gained more international attention, the secretive group has also carried out a crackdown on dissent domestically, including recently sentencing 44 people to death. Regional officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that staff from U.N. agencies were among the hostages. Those arrested included staff from the U.N. human rights agency, its development program, the World Food Program and a person working for the office of its special envoy, the officials said.
The rebels are also holding the wife of one of the hostages. The United Nations declined to immediately comment on the matter. The Mayoon Organization for Human Rights, which identified the UN staffers held hostage, also named other aid groups whose staff were held hostage by the Houthis in four provinces under their control – Amran, Hodeida, Saada and Sanaa. Those groups did not immediately comment on their staff being held hostage. Yemen’s Houthi rebels and their allied media organizations did not immediately acknowledge the UN staffers being held hostage.
The Iran-backed rebels, however, have planned a weekly mass demonstration after Friday afternoon prayers, a time when Houthi leaders usually announce their actions. It was not immediately clear why the rebels had taken the staff hostage.
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