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Ahmed al-Yamani’s family went from joyous celebration of their daughter’s wedding to terror the next day when masked soldiers stormed their home. sanaYemen’s capital is held by Iran-backed people of the country Houthi The rebels arrested him.
The family did not hear from him for months. They suspect that his only crime was working for local humanitarian groups.
Al-Yamani is one of dozens of Yemeni workers with aid groups. united nations agencies and non-governmental organizations that have been detained by the Houthis in the rebel-held northern part of the country since last year. The crackdown involved raiding homes and offices, terrorizing families and confiscating smartphones, laptops and documents.
Although some UN staff have been released, most aid workers have been detained for months without official charges or trial. The rebels say they are spies for the West and Israel, but their families deny this claim.
raided the family home
The Houthis broke into al-Yamani’s home on June 6, 2024, while his family was sleeping and captured the 52-year-old. They turned their guns on his family members, including his young son Abdelrahman.
They ransacked the house and confiscated all his documents, as well as the house deed, al-Yamani’s elder son said. During the search, al-Yamani’s wife and mother were guarded by five female Houthi personnel in a separate room.
“They left the house with my father in an armored vehicle and took his car,” elder son Khalid al-Yamani, 28, told The Associated Press by phone from France, where he now lives. Al-Yamani writes his name differently from the rest of his family.
Dozens of aid workers were arrested in raids that began in late May 2024, according to a report by Human Rights Watch. Their families were not informed of their whereabouts and had no contact with them for several months, which amounts to enforced disappearance, the report said.
arrests have an impact
Dr Ali Mudhwahi, 56, a public health advisor with UNICEF, was also arrested in June 2024. The Houthis raided his office, interrogated him and his colleagues for hours, then blindfolded and took them away.
Eight months later, he called his family, his wife Safiyah, for the first time Muhammad Said. To this day, she and the couple’s 12-year-old daughter do not know where he is being held.
Since that first call, Mohammed – who was not in Yemen at the time of her husband’s arrest – said there have been phone calls once every month or two, lasting only a few minutes.
“In the last three calls, his voice sounded tired,” Mohammed said over the phone. “I can understand that he is not well.”
A doctor in Sanaa told the AP that his brother, who worked with UNESCO, was arrested last year and his cousin, also an employee of another U.N. agency, was arrested in September.
The Houthis had called the cousin for questioning several times before. One day, he didn’t come back, said the doctor, who also lives abroad and who spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing for the safety of his relatives.
As far as her brother is concerned, the doctor said the family is now allowed to call him every few months, but not for more than 10 minutes.
Family Have become ‘ghosts of humans’
Since al-Yamani’s arrest, the family has seen him once, on 16 August. They received instructions from the Houthis to come to a meeting point and were taken to an undisclosed location by a bus with black windows.
Once the bus stopped, al-Yamani was brought inside and his wife, mother and son Abdelrahman were able to talk to him briefly. According to the family, he appeared thin and had lost a lot of weight, Khaled al-Yamani said, adding that he had spoken to his father three times since his arrest.
The pain of families over the detention of their loved ones has left many of them stunned.
“We are the ghosts of people,” said the Sana doctor.
Mohammed said she tells her daughter that her father is away on a “work mission”, which the child remembers from earlier.
“They took the head of my family. They took our only provider,” he said. “I’m trying to hide my pain from my daughter but… I’m worried.”
Military operations cause more concern
These families became even more fearful when the United States and Israel launched an air and naval campaign against the Houthis in response to the rebels’ missile and drone attacks on ships in the Red Sea. The Houthis said their actions were in solidarity with Palestinians over the war in Gaza.
As Israeli attacks hit residential areas, Houthi military sites and prison facilities in Sanaa and the port of Hodeida, they worried whether their loved ones were being held in any of those locations.
According to Hazem al-Assad of the Houthis’ political bureau, the detainees, who include activists from international groups and non-profits, are involved in espionage and providing coordinates and information to Israel about potential targets.
“They had advanced spying equipment and eavesdropping equipment to intercept calls and identify locations,” al-Assad told the AP. He said the cases would be referred to judicial authorities in time.
Deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq condemned the arrests and said the allegations against UN staff were “baseless and deeply troubling”.
“Our staff are impartial humanitarians and development professionals,” Haq said.
The Houthis in October released a dozen UN international staff after detaining them in Sanaa last weekend, according to the world body, which said 12 then left Yemen.
However, 59 Yemenis working for the United Nations are still detained, as well as several other NGO and civil society personnel from various diplomatic missions.
Disappointed with the United Nations
Al-Yamani’s last job in March 2022 was at the nonprofit Direct Aid Society, which has offices in both Houthi-held north and southern Yemen, where the internationally recognized government is based.
Khaled al-Yamani says he has contacted all of his father’s former employers, as well as UN offices in Yemen, but was told he had to prioritize the release of his current employees.
Yemen has been battling a civil war since 2014, when the Houthis captured Sanaa and much of the country’s north, forcing the government to step down. The war, which has stalled for the past few years, has killed more than 150,000 people, both combatants and civilians, and led to one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.
The United Nations is actively engaging with the Houthis to ensure “the immediate and unconditional release and safe return of all those detained,” Haq said.
“We completely share the goals of the families,” Haq said. “We stand with them in their frustration and concern.”
Al-Yamani and Mohammed say they regularly post about detainees to draw attention to their cases. But in his posts calling for action, al-Yamani says he is careful to appeal to the Houthis’ sympathy, rather than say something that could provoke them.