Humanitarian Workers in Yemen Face Increased Dangers Amid Conflict

Over the past year, there has been a spike in violence, harassment, restrictions and incitement against aid workers in Yemen, to the detriment of those who most need their assistance

In the first visit of its kind since Yemen’s civil conflict broke out in 2014, US Ambassador to Yemen Steven Fagin arrived in the country last month for a state visit. Fagin’s visit, to the city of Seiyun in the Hadhramaut governorate, came amid a wave of violent attacks against humanitarian workers in the country, including harassment, abductions, and killings.

Fagin and the governor of Hadhramaut, Mabkhoot bin Mubarak bin Madhi, discussed “efforts to ensure that the region’s residents had the opportunity to contribute to Yemen’s stability, security, and prosperity and the importance of a peaceful, inclusive resolution to Yemen’s conflict,” according to a US press release.

Yemen’s warring parties, including the Houthi rebels who currently control the Yemeni capital Sanaa, and the rival Southern Transitional Council, seem unable to curb the spike in violent incidents against humanitarian workers and international non-governmental organizations. In many cases, these groups are allegedly responsible for the attacks.

Aid workers in Yemen … are too often subjected to threats to their safety and well-being, even as they work to save lives and reduce suffering every day

According to a press release by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “Aid workers in Yemen, more than 95% of whom are Yemenis, ensure that 12.6 million people on average receive humanitarian assistance or protection support every month. But they operate in an extremely challenging environment. They are too often subjected to threats to their safety and well-being, even as they work to save lives and reduce suffering every day.”

UNOCHA said there was a significant rise in attacks between 2021 and 2022, with “27 incidents of threat and intimidation between January and June, compared with 17 such incidents recorded all of last year. There were also 28 carjacking incidents recorded in the first six months of the year, 17 more than in 2021. Twenty-seven attacks against aid organizations’ premises and facilities, including the looting of humanitarian supplies and other assets, were recorded in the first half of 2022, also more than in the whole of 2021.”

In one particularly shocking incident, Moayad Hameidi, a local office head of the World Food Programme in the Taiz governorate, was shot and killed on July 21.

“The United Nations World Food Programme is deeply saddened to confirm that a staff member was shot and killed by unknown gunmen on Friday afternoon in Turbah, Taiz in southwest Yemen,” the WFP said in a press release about the killing.

WFP executive director Cindy McCain said that the perpetrators must be held accountable for the murder of Hameidi, a Jordanian citizen and an employee of the WFP for 18 years.

“Those responsible must be held accountable. Aid workers should never be a target,” she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

A staff member at the WFP using the pseudonym Sa’ad Salah said, “This is a truly brutal crime by all standards. Such crimes will aggravate and worsen the humanitarian situation [in Yemen]. Because of this incident, operations at the WFP were halted for almost two months. This is certainly not for the benefit of the community members and beneficiaries who are in dire need of humanitarian aid.”

Hameidi’s killing was just one of many recent attacks against humanitarian workers in Yemen. These have included abductions, arrests, obstructions to access, and restrictions on aid distribution, all of which have added to the difficulties of relief work in Yemen on top of those caused by the conflict.

“We deal with two different states in Yemen, one in the south and one in the north. It is not one authority as some might presume,” Salah said. “The challenges in the [Houthi-controlled] north are much bigger than in the south, you cannot even compare them.”

We rarely see them [the authorities] pursue, detain, or punish any person who commits such crimes. All of these violations and assassinations create a feeling of insecurity and an environment unfit for human living, let alone for humanitarian work.

Journalist and community activist Hana’a Ali told The Media Line about the recent increased attacks against international non-governmental organizations, claiming that the authorities do nothing to punish the perpetrators.

“We rarely see them pursue, detain, or punish any person who commits such crimes,” Ali said. “All of these violations and assassinations create a feeling of insecurity and an environment unfit for human living, let alone for humanitarian work.”

Yemen’s warring factions often suspect INGO and humanitarian workers as running undercover intelligence operations that threaten their efforts for military control.

Sharaf al-Mahdi, a Houthi leading figure who works in the prime minister’s office, claimed that the INGOs’ work is primarily intelligence gathering and if this had not been reined in, the areas under Houthi control would have been exposed to threat.

“Any measures or restrictions taken by Ansar Allah [the Houthi movement] were solely aimed at preserving the state sovereignty,” al-Mahid told The Media Line. “There is nothing wrong with Ansar Allah requesting to assist INGOs with distributing humanitarian assistance or preventing or restricting some procedures which might impact the public interest.”

Any allegations made against humanitarian workers in Yemen are made with the intention of bringing harm to humanitarian work and the work of INGOs. They impede access to beneficiaries, especially those who reside in remote areas where awareness is weak.

Salah said it had never been proved that any humanitarian workers anywhere in Yemen had been involved in any activities outside humanitarian work.

“Any allegations made against humanitarian workers in Yemen are made with the intention of bringing harm to humanitarian work and the work of INGOs,” he said. “They impede access to beneficiaries, especially those who reside in remote areas where awareness is weak.”

An employee at a local NGO in the Taiz governorate using the pseudonym Saddam Ahmed said the warring parties in Yemen are seeking financial gains in exchange for allowing humanitarian projects to be implemented.

“They think of INGOs as cash cows,” he said.

Ahmed told The Media Line that humanitarian workers face other kinds of attacks in addition to physical ones, including defamation and incitement in mosques during Friday sermons.

“They were instigating against some INGOs, mentioning them by name and telling people that humanitarian workers were spreading ideas that destroy the values and principles of society,” he said, and added that the campaigns against humanitarian workers had also reached social media.

Like many humanitarian workers, Ahmed no longer wears anything that identifies his work. Many humanitarian workers do not disclose where they work except to some close friends and family members.

“All of these measures are an attempt to hide from people’s angry reactions,” Ahmed said.

In addition, the movements of humanitarian workers working at INGOs are constantly restricted, making it difficult for humanitarian workers to visit project sites and monitor progress.