Human Rights Watch says 22.3 million Yemenis need aid as Houthis hold 73 UN staff
Yemen Herald News 
SANAA, Yemen — More than 22.3 million people in Yemen need humanitarian assistance, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing published on Aug. 26.
The organisation said the country still faces one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, and that conditions have worsened as fighting resumed between Houthi forces on one side and Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government on the other.
It said the regional conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran, which has drawn in Gulf states, has added to the strain.
Houthi forces are holding at least 73 United Nations staff in arbitrary detention, along with dozens of civil society workers, according to the briefing.
That figure matches the United Nations’ own account. Secretary-General António Guterres said in June that 73 UN personnel remained arbitrarily detained in Yemen, that one colleague had died in detention and that some were being held incommunicado. He called for their immediate and unconditional release.
The detentions began on May 31, 2024, when Houthi forces raided premises in areas they control and took 13 UN staff and at least 50 employees of Yemeni and international civil society organisations, Human Rights Watch said.
Dozens more have been detained since. Only a few have been released.
All of those held are Yemeni nationals, the organisation said. Many were arrested without warrants and forcibly disappeared for months, denied access to lawyers and denied adequate medical care despite serious health conditions.
A World Food Programme employee died in Houthi custody on Feb. 11, 2025.
The arrests have been accompanied by a Houthi media campaign accusing aid organisations and their staff of espionage, according to the briefing. The Houthi authorities have not published evidence for those accusations.
Aid workers have been unable to move freely, reach their offices or carry out their work in full for fear of arrest, Human Rights Watch said.
It said the detentions have set back the humanitarian response at a time when food insecurity is worsening and operations are shrinking because of funding cuts, security risks and restrictions imposed by the Houthis.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs puts the number of acutely food insecure Yemenis at 18.3 million. It counts more than 2.2 million children under five as acutely malnourished, including 516,157 with severe acute malnutrition, and 5.2 million people displaced inside the country.
Aid agencies have appealed for 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million people this year.
Human Rights Watch said parties on all sides carried out attacks in July that may have breached international humanitarian law.
It listed Houthi attacks on civilian ships in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Bab al-Mandab Strait, and Houthi strikes on airports and oil facilities in Saudi Arabia.
It also said Yemeni government forces, in coalition with Saudi Arabia, struck Sanaa airport in July. That airport is the only one running international flights to and from Houthi-controlled territory, where most of Yemen’s population lives, and is an entry point for aid staff and supplies.
A Houthi attack on the ship Tihama on Aug. 11 killed four crew members and injured others, the organisation said. Al Jazeera, reporting on the same strike, said three Pakistani crew members were killed and eight other seamen were injured.
The organisation said that using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, is a war crime, as are attacks on civilians or civilian objects carried out deliberately or recklessly.
It said the Houthis, the Southern Transitional Council and the Yemeni government all continue to detain journalists and restrict civic space in the areas they control, including by suppressing peaceful protest.
Journalists have also been targeted. Mohammed Aydah, who had reported for Al Arabiya and Al Hadath since 2019, was killed in Mukalla on June 24 by an explosive device planted in his car.
Yemeni authorities investigating the killing found that two men they said were linked to the Houthis had carried it out.
Marib security forces detained the journalist Hamoud Haza on June 27 while he was covering a public event. He said he was held incommunicado and released two days later after signing a pledge not to criticise the internationally recognised government or its information minister.
Houthi forces took the journalist Salah al-Deen al-Rawhani from his home in Sanaa in March. He has not been heard from since.
Government-aligned forces appeared to use excessive force against demonstrators supporting the Southern Transitional Council in February, killing and injuring dozens in Aden and Shabwa and detaining dozens in Aden and Hadramout, the briefing said.
Landmines, laid mostly by the Houthis, continue to kill civilians. Human Rights Watch said the response from the government, demining organisations and the international community has not been adequate.
The organisation asked UN member states with influence over the Houthis to press for the unconditional release of everyone held arbitrarily, an end to reprisals against aid workers, and unhindered humanitarian access across the country.
It asked the Human Rights Council to increase scrutiny of Yemen, including by setting up an independent international mechanism, or giving the UN human rights office a mandate to monitor and report on violations.
The Houthis arrested dozens of people in the last week of September 2025 for marking the anniversary of Yemen’s September 26 revolution.
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