Cairo – Sputnik. A United Nations source in Sanaa told ‘Sputnik’ that the ‘Ansar Allah’ authorities released 15 foreign officials and employees, including UNICEF representative Peter Hawkins, UNHCR representative Marin Din Kajdomkaj, Deputy UNICEF representative Miyo Nimoto, and Deputy UNDP representative Vakhtang Svanidze, as well as the operations officer at the United Nations Office for Safety and Security in Yemen, Ahmed Hamada.
He added that among the released foreign staff are 10 employees working with the UN envoy’s office, the Hudaydah Agreement Implementation Mission ‘UNMHA’, UNICEF, the World Food Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the UNOPS project services office, and the UN shared services office.
He further mentioned that ‘Ansar Allah’ seized the operations room of the safety and security office in the UN residential complex in the Hadda area, south of Sanaa, including its equipment, a wireless communication station, and a network linking UN agencies and organizations, as well as technical equipment.
This follows the release of 11 local employees by ‘Ansar Allah’ after interrogating them about their work nature and confiscating their computers, 24 hours after an armed group affiliated with the faction stormed the UN residential complex in southern Sanaa.
The arrests of the UN employees by ‘Ansar Allah’ came a day after the group officially announced on August 30, the killing of its Prime Minister Ahmed Galeb Al-Rahwi and 9 of his ministers, with others injured in an Israeli airstrike on Sanaa, in response to the group’s ongoing attacks on Israel since November 2023, as a reaction to the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip.
The Arab country has been suffering for the tenth consecutive year from a continuous power struggle between the internationally recognized government and the ‘Ansar Allah’ group, which has resulted in a humanitarian crisis described by the United Nations as one of the worst in the world.
