CAIRO: Yemen’s Houthis have demanded that employees of local United Nations (UN) agencies from the United Kingdom and the United States leave the country within a month, a source in a UN institution in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa told Sputnik on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saria said that the US and the UK had conducted 18 strikes on Houthi positions in different provinces in northern Yemen, mainly in the capital region.
“The Houthis... reached out to the office of the UN permanent representative and humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, demanding that all staff members with US or UK citizenship to leave the country within 30 days,“ the source said.
The Houthis wrote in the letter that US and UK citizens should not be deployed for UN services in areas controlled by the movement until further notice.
The Houthi movement, which controls large parts of northern and western Yemen, vowed in November 2023 to attack any ships associated with Israel until it halts military actions in the Gaza Strip. This led US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin to announce the creation of a multinational operation to secure navigation in the Red Sea. US and UK forces then launched major strikes against Houthi positions in a bid to degrade the rebels’ ability to target commercial vessels.–Bernama-Sputnik