Prime Minister Shaya al-Zindani presses EU and Dutch ambassadors for wider support
Yemen Herald News 
ADEN, Yemen — Yemen’s prime minister asked the European Union and the Netherlands on Wednesday to widen their political, development and humanitarian support for his government.
Shaya al-Zindani made the request in a meeting in Aden with EU Ambassador Patrick Simonnet and Netherlands Ambassador Jeannette Seppen, the state news agency Saba reported.
The account rests on Saba, which carried the government readout. Neither the EU delegation nor the Dutch embassy has published a summary of its own, and no independent account of the meeting has appeared.
Al-Zindani thanked the two governments for assistance already given, according to the agency.
He said continued help was needed to strengthen state institutions and ease conditions for citizens and displaced people.
The government and the political and military leadership remain committed to restoring state authority across the country, he said.
He described the Houthi movement’s hold on territory as a coup, the language the internationally recognised government uses for the group’s seizure of Sanaa in 2014.
The Houthis reject that description and present themselves as the country’s legitimate authority.
Al-Zindani said the threat posed by the group had become a cross-border one, reaching neighbouring states, international shipping and global trade and supply lines.
He called for a clearer and more effective international response to the sources of that threat, Saba reported.
He also asked for work on the factors sustaining it.
Simonnet and Seppen said they remained committed to supporting Yemen and its government, according to the agency.
They backed wider cooperation, efforts towards peace and stability, and steps to ease the humanitarian crisis, Saba said.
The same two ambassadors met Interior Minister Ibrahim Haidan in Aden a day earlier.
Haidan used that meeting to ask the European Union for help training security personnel and equipping Yemen’s coast guard, Saba reported at the time.
Al-Zindani has been prime minister since February. The Presidential Leadership Council named him on 15 January, after accepting the resignation of Salem Saleh bin Braik.
He served as minister of foreign affairs and expatriates from 2024 until his move to the premiership.
Afrah al-Zouba was appointed foreign minister in July, the first woman to hold the post.
Simonnet took up his duties as EU ambassador on 1 September 2025 and presented his credentials to Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council, in Aden.
He was the EU’s special envoy for the Mediterranean from 2023 to 2025, and its ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 2020 to 2023.
He served as EU ambassador to Iraq between 2015 and 2017.
Seppen has been the Netherlands’ ambassador to Yemen since 2023.
The Dutch government says its work in the country centres on humanitarian aid, conflict resolution and peacebuilding.
The two ambassadors have travelled together inside Yemen before, including a joint visit to Marib.
European involvement in Yemen also runs through the sea lanes off its coast.
The EU naval mission Aspides has escorted merchant shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since February 2024.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said last week that the mission had raised its alert level.
Traffic through the Bab al-Mandab strait has fallen sharply since attacks on shipping began, pushing vessels around southern Africa.
The European Commission announced a humanitarian aid budget of 1.9 billion euros for 2026 in January.
Yemen is among the Middle East recipients under that budget, alongside Gaza, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
The EU delegation to Yemen works from Aden. Simonnet delivered the delegation’s Europe Day address there in May.
The humanitarian file the ambassadors discussed is among the largest in the world.
More than 22 million people in Yemen need assistance, according to the UN humanitarian needs and response plan published in March.
The plan puts the number of acutely food insecure at 18.3 million.
It counts 5.2 million people displaced inside the country.
More than 2.2 million children under five are acutely malnourished, it says, 516,157 of them severely.
Aid agencies are seeking 2.16 billion dollars this year to reach 12 million people.
Fighting on the west coast has added to those numbers in recent weeks.
A government unit said nearly 147,000 people were displaced in 18 days, and UN agencies put the figure at 112,000 over two weeks.
Aid operations in the north are also constrained by detentions.
Human Rights Watch said 73 United Nations staff remained in Houthi custody as of February, all of them Yemeni nationals.
The detentions began with raids from 31 May 2024 and seven of those held had been released by June, the group said.
Arab foreign ministers warned this week that the Houthi advance threatens shipping through Bab al-Mandab.
The war began in 2014, when the Houthis took Sanaa. A Saudi-led coalition intervened the following March.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates led the coalition that entered the war on the government’s side.
The Netherlands has funded humanitarian programmes in Yemen through UN agencies and international organisations.
Seppen and Simonnet have also joined other EU ambassadors on visits to Aden.
Aden has served as the seat of the internationally recognised government since 2015.
The Presidential Leadership Council was formed in April 2022, when it took over the powers of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
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