Foreign UN staff confined to Yemen compound by Houthis since Saturday

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By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -Fifteen international staff with the United Nations have been confined to the U.N. compound in the Yemen’s capital Sanaa since an incursion by the Houthi authorities on Saturday, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Monday.

He said the staff are now free to move around the compound and have been in contact with their families and U.N. agencies, adding: “We hope that they will be free to leave the compound as soon as possible.”

Dujarric said five Yemeni staff who were also detained in the compound since Saturday have been released.

In addition, another 53 U.N. staff remain arbitrarily detained by the Houthis, he said, some since 2021.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke with the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Iran and Oman on Monday about the detentions, Dujarric said.

The Iran-aligned Houthis have controlled most of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, since seizing power in 2014 and early 2015.

The United Nations has repeatedly rejected Houthi accusations that U.N. staff or U.N. operations in Yemen were involved in spying. Dujarric last week described the accusations as “extremely worrying.”

“And accusations, calling U.N. staff spies or, as we’ve seen in other contexts, calling them terrorists – all that does is it puts the lives of U.N. staff everywhere at risk, and it’s unacceptable,” he said.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Daniel Wallis)