The Iran-backed Houthis on Sunday (August 31, 2025) raided places of work of the United Nations’ food and children’s agencies in Yemen’s capital, detaining a minimum of one UN employee, officers stated, because the rebels tighten safety throughout Sanaa following the Israeli killing of their prime minister and a number of Cabinet members.
Abeer Etefa, a spokesperson for the World Food Program, advised The Associated Press that safety forces raided the agencies’ places of work in the Houthi-controlled capital Sunday morning.
Also raided have been UNICEF places of work, in response to a UN official and a Houthi official, who spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t authorised to transient the media.
Ammar Ammar, a spokesperson for UNICEF, stated there was “an ongoing situation” associated to their places of work in Sanaa, with out offering additional particulars.
The UN official stated contacts with a number of different WFP and UNICEF staffers have been misplaced and that they have been seemingly additionally detained.
The raids have been the newest in a long-running Houthi crackdown towards the United Nations and different worldwide organisations working in rebel-held areas in Yemen.
They have detained dozens of UN staffers, in addition to folks related to help teams, civil society and the now-closed US Embassy in Sanaa. The UN suspended its operations in the Houthi stronghold of Saada in northern Yemen after the rebels detained eight UN staffers in January.
At least 4 ministers confirmed killed in the Israeli strike Sunday’s raids got here on the heels of the killing of the Houthi prime minister and a number of of his Cabinet in an Israeli strike on Thursday, in a blow to the Iran-backed rebels who’ve launched assaults on Israel and ships in the Red Sea in relation to the Israel-Hamas warfare in the Gaza Strip.
Among the useless have been 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 and Tourism Minister Ali al-Yafei, in response to two Houthi officers and the victims’ households.
Also killed was a strong deputy inside minister, Abdel-Majed al-Murtada, the Houthi officers stated.
They have been focused throughout a “routine workshop held by the government to evaluate its activities and performance over the past year,” a Houthi assertion stated on Saturday, two days after the strike.
Defence Minister Mohamed Nasser al-Attefi survived whereas Abdel-Karim al-Houthi, the inside minister and one of the highly effective figures in the insurgent group, did not attend the Thursday assembly, the Houthi officers stated.
