A United Nations staff member who was recently detained by Yemen’s Houthi authorities has been released, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Wednesday.
“We continue to urge the de facto authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all UN and humanitarian workers who are supporting the most vulnerable people in Yemen,” Dujarric said.
He did not provide information about the timing or circumstances of the detention, which comes after nine other UN personnel were detained by Houthis.
Dujarric said 53 UN staff remain detained by Houthis, adding that some have been held since 2021.
Yemen has been the focus of one of the world’s largest humanitarian operations during a decade of civil war that disrupted food supplies. WFP says it provided assistance to 15.3 million people, or 47 percent of the population, in 2023.
WFP was among the UN offices raided by Houthis in the Yemeni capital Sanaa in August. Eleven UN personnel were detained as a result of the raid.
The raid, which followed an Israeli strike on Sanaa that killed the prime minister of the Houthi-run government and several other ministers, was condemned by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who described the detentions as “intolerable.”
Houthi officials said last month that the UN personnel’s legal immunities should not shield espionage activities.
The Houthi-run foreign ministry also accused the UN of bias for condemning what they called “legal measures taken by the government against spy cells involved in crimes,” while failing to denounce the Israeli attack.
UN staff member released from Houthi detention in Yemen, UN spokesperson says
https://arab.news/c6gww
UN staff member released from Houthi detention in Yemen, UN spokesperson says
- 53 UN staff remain detained by Houthis, some have been held since 2021
Take back and prosecute your jailed Daesh militants, Iraq tells Europe
RAQQA: Baghdad on Friday urged European states to repatriate and prosecute their citizens who fought for Daesh, and who are now being moved to Iraq from detention camps in Syria.
Europeans were among 150 Daesh prisoners transferred so far by the US military from Kurdish custody in Syria. They were among an estimated 7,000 militants due to be moved across the border to Iraq as the Kurdish-led force that has held them for years relinquishes swaths of territory to the advancing Syrian army.
In a telephone call on Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said European countries should take back and prosecute their nationals.
An Iraqi security official said the 150 so far transferred to Iraq were “all leaders of the Daesh group, and some of the most notorious criminals.” They included “Europeans, Asians, Arabs and Iraqis,” he said.
Another Iraqi security source said the group comprised “85 Iraqis and 65 others of various nationalities, including Europeans, Sudanese, Somalis, and people from the Caucasus region.”
They all took part in Daesh operations in Iraq, he said, and were now being held at a prison in Baghdad.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that “non-Iraqi terrorists will be in Iraq temporarily.”
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces jailed thousands of militant fighters and detained tens of thousands of their relatives in camps as it pushed out Daesh in 2019 after five years of fighting.
