In Ramadan, What Behind Houthis’ Restricting International Organizations in Yemen?

In an attempt to put pressure, the Houthis resort to kidnapping workers in international relief organizations working in Yemen in order to influence their activities, subject them to their desires, and obtain additional gains to finance their war effort, especially in the holy month of Ramadan.

In addition to the kidnappings, the Houthis are working to restrict the activities of the organizations and monitor their various movements in the areas under their control in northern and central Yemen, despite the people's need for their support in the war that has been going on since 2015 between the Iranian-backed militia and government forces backed by the Saudi and Emirati coalition.

Before Ramadan, the economic crisis in Yemen became more brutal, especially with the Houthis restricting aid access, the significant increase in food prices, and the scarcity of oil derivatives, the price of which doubled to nearly 300 percent, which increased the suffering of Yemenis.

 

Kidnapping and Restraints

The Houthis imposed additional measures on the organizations to carry out their activities, through government institutions under their control and through the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation.

This prompted some organizations to move their headquarters from the capital, Sana’a, which is under the control of the Houthi militia, to the temporary capital, Aden, which is under the administration of the legitimate government and the control of the forces of the transitional council supported by the Emirates.

The restrictions and arbitrary actions of the Houthis are no longer the only violations that affect workers in the United Nations or international relief agencies in Yemen.

The kidnapping weapon has emerged as a new means of intimidation practiced by the Houthi militia against humanitarian work with the aim of achieving political and economic gains.

In November 2021, the Houthis kidnapped two UN employees in the capital, Sana'a, one working for UNESCO, the other working for the human rights office.

Their fate remained unknown for weeks, before the former UN envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, announced, during a speech before the UN Security Council on February 15, 2022, that the Houthi militia had finally allowed members of the families of the kidnapped Yemeni employees to visit them.

The Houthis imposed new restrictions on entry and movement permits for staff of organizations, which impede and delay the arrival of aid, amid a worsening of the living conditions in Yemen.

These restrictions tightened the noose on the movements of aid organizations in the governorates of Hodeidah and Hajjah, which witnessed violent confrontations between the Houthis and the Yemeni government forces.

The militia also imposed restrictions on Yemeni female employees of organizations and prevented them from moving except with the presence of escorts, and demanded that a copy of the lists of aid recipients be handed over.

In this regard, one of the workers of a UN organization in central Yemen stated that "the Houthis forced them at the checkpoints to hand over and review a copy of the beneficiaries' statements and pressure to delete some names on the pretext that they were not affiliated with the group."

He continued in an interview with Al-Estiklal: "The Houthis imposed control over our movements in the region and checked our identities more than once."

According to the statistics of the Yemeni government’s Higher Relief Committee, there were 65 ships seized during the period from 2015 to 2018 by the Houthis, and during the same period, 615 relief trucks were seized and four of them were blown up, in addition to 16 incidents of attacks on United Nations organizations and their workers, which ranged from killing, kidnapping, and forcible closure of offices. The violations were concentrated in Sana'a, Taiz, Hodeidah and Ibb.

 

Additional Gains

Relief organizations affiliated with the United Nations and other organizations are forced to pay sums of money to the leaders of the Houthi militia to facilitate the tasks of their activities.

It also works to remove the financial allocation to the Houthis from any humanitarian work, and distributes it to the executive directors in government institutions under the control of the militia.

The Houthis' actions also included local organizations, which act as partners to other UN and international institutions.

The Houthis detain humanitarian aid convoys from time to time on the pretext that they are damaged in order to obtain financial gains and not out of concern for the lives of Yemeni citizens.

Commenting on this matter, Yemeni journalist and human rights defender Hamdan al-Ali said: “These practices are a means of pressure to pass the group's policy. Many international reports have already talked about this issue, as well as the reports of the expert team, which referred in one way or another to this matter."

Al-Ali added to Al-Estiklal: "These practices negatively affect the Yemenis, because the process of distributing aid will be affected, and this is what happened during the last period when some organizations announced the suspension of their activities in Houthi-controlled areas, and the reason was that they targeted employees."

He pointed out that "this affects the organizations' ability to monitor Houthi violations.”

The Houthis also resorted to luring fighters from tribes who do not belong to the “Hashimi dynasty” through the use of the aid card.

This made the granting or withholding of food aid at the direction of the Houthi authorities, which require fighters from registered families to receive aid.

The Houthis are imposing personalities of a "Hashimi dynasty," the dynasty the claim they belong to, to occupy high positions in international organizations operating in Yemen, in addition to appointing supervisors in government institutions under their control.

The militia requires international organizations operating in Yemen to obtain a prior license from the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which it created for the purpose of supervising all relief projects.

It also imposed the supply of aid allocations and social responsibility programs to the accounts of the Commission for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which was formed by al-Houthi in November 2019.

This body was known as the "Supreme Council for the Management and Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs", and its goal was to achieve greater control over humanitarian aid.

The Houthi Council interferes in the work of UN organizations, by issuing the necessary permits for their work in return for certain conditions they impose to enrich and finance the war effort.

The council is an illegal entity created by the leader Abdul-Ghani al-Madani, who belongs to the Houthi dynasty, and is headed by Abdul-Mohsen Tawoos, with the name "Secretary General of the Supreme Council for the Management and Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and International Cooperation".

 

Lobby and Interests

The Houthis worked from an early age to form a network of activists loyal to them abroad, to market their grievances to the world and the United Nations bodies.

The militia has also been active with Iranian support to attract and recruit activists and employees in international organizations and has formed a wing that leads its soft war in the corridors of civil society and international forums, including the Security Council.

Since the start of the Houthi rebellion in Sa'ada governorate on June 18, 2004, the civil wing has worked to confer the mantle of the "oppressed minority" to pave the way for the militia to Sana'a.

After the Houthi coup in late 2014, the same tools tried to impart injustice, freedom of opinion, expression, and demonstration to cover up their project in Yemen.

With every international effort to stop the bloodshed in Yemen, al-Houthi resorts to publicizing the humanitarian card, through his activists and his soft wing, to mislead the world and prolong the war.

The role of activists and the Houthi lobby includes preparing suspicious reports to conceal their violations from the world, and seeking to exploit some organizations to stand up to every policy of pressure to force them to accept a settlement.

Perhaps the most prominent of these is international pressures to stop the battle to restore the city of “Hodeidah”, the port of Iranian arms smuggling, under the pretext of the humanitarian situation through the “Stockholm Agreement” on December 13, 2018, which was signed between the legitimate government and the Houthis under the auspices of the United Nations.

Also, trying to confront the decision to classify the Houthi militia as a terrorist organization by exploiting the suffering of Yemenis is part of the militia's soft wing's mission to prolong the war.

Despite the Houthis' pressures and violations against the United Nations organizations, there is great coordination between the two parties that work to provide mutual facilities.

Including granting visas for the landing of United Nations crews at the airport in the capital, Sana’a, which includes the headquarters of all international organizations, in return, facilitating the movement of the Houthis through United Nations planes, and transferring their leaders and their wounded abroad, in addition to not dealing seriously with the militia’s violations.

An investigative report by Al Jazeera revealed that air navigation has flourished at Sana’a International Airport, which is under the control of the Houthis, and which is supposed to have been closed since 2016.

This is compared to Aden International Airport, which is nominally under the control of the Yemeni government while managed by the UAE-backed Transitional Council forces, which witnessed a much smaller number of flights, although it is open to all commercial flights.

The investigation added that the closed airport, "to Yemenis, is open to a group of people," including many "Houthi leaders who travel from Sanaa airport through United Nations airlines or Oman Air that comes to the airport from time to time."

He concluded that Sana'a International Airport received more than 270 flights during the period between June and August 2020, i.e. an average of three or two flights per day and sometimes up to four flights, compared to 220 flights received by Aden International Airport in the same period.