The agency has confirmed the death of the staff a day after dedicating operations in Yemen due to Houthi detention.
According to the organization, a relief worker of the UN World Food Program (WFP) has killed three weeks after being detained in the north of the country.
The announcement was made a day after the suspended rescue operations in the UN’s northern Sada region, which cited the detention of its staff through a Houthi group controlling the area.
The WFP did not release when or how his employee had died, but said he was one of seven local staff since January 23, “local authorities have been detained by local authorities”.
In a statement published on the Social Media Platform X, WFP said that the organization is “Suffering from grief and angry” The United Nations has repeatedly called on Hutis to release the UN staff members.
WFP executive director Cindy McCain wrote on the X, “The tragic loss of Ahmed, a member of the WFP team, was broken and angry, which was detained in Yemen.”
He added that the 40 -year -old, who joined the humanitarian organization in 2017, “played an important role in our mission to provide life -saving food aid”. After that his wife and two children have survived.
In a statement on Monday, a UN spokesperson explained that the “extraordinary” decision to stop all operations and programs in Saada was lacking the necessary security conditions.
Since 2021, Houthi authorities have detained dozens of UN staff, and the group has kept at least 24 people before the latest arrests. The group has sometimes presented workers as colleagues of Western intelligence agencies, the humanitarian community has strongly denied the allegations.
The decision to stop the UN operation is expected to affect the global reaction to one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters. Seven UN agencies work in Saada – including the WFP, the World Health Organization and UNICEF.
The Yemeni civil war has been the center of the world’s largest humanitarian works during a decade, which has disrupted food supply and displaced millions of people. The WFP said it has provided assistance to 47 % of Yemen’s population – which has calculated about 15.3 million people in 2023.
The United Nations has predicted that the need for assistance is only increasing. The agency estimates that more than 19 million people across Yemen will need humanitarian aid this year because many are dealing with the economic effects of climate, malnutrition, cholera and war.
Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 when the Houthis controlled the capital Sana and most of the country’s northern region. The aggression forced the government to flee the south, headed by the then President Abdul Babah Mansoor Hadi. It is currently based in Port City Eden.
More than 1.5 million people, including civilians and fighters, have been killed in the conflict, and in recent years, after lasting peace efforts, a large scale has been damaged.
