ADVERTISEMENT
Eleven Yemeni employees of United Nations agencies have been detained by Yemen's Houthi rebels under unclear circumstances, authorities said on Friday, as the rebels face increasing financial pressure and airstrikes from a U.S.-led coalition. Others working for aid groups also have been taken.
The detentions come as the Houthis, who seized Yemen's capital nearly a decade ago and have been fighting a Saudi-led coalition since shortly after, have been targeting shipping throughout the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
But while gaining more attention internationally, the secretive group has cracked down at dissent at home, includingrecently sentencing 44 people to death.
U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric in New York acknowledged 11 U.N. staffers had been taken.
“We are very concerned about these developments, and we’re actively seeking clarification from the Houthi de facto authorities regarding the circumstances of these detentions and most importantly, to ensure the immediate access to those U.N. personnel," he told journalists. "So I can further tell you that we’re pursuing all available channels to secure the safe and unconditional release of all of them as rapidly as possible.”
Of the 11, the U.N. said nine are men and two are women. Six work for the U.N.'s human rights agency, while one apiece work for its special envoy's office, its development arm, UNICEF, the World Food Programme and UNESCO.
The Mayyun Organisation for Human Rights, which also reported U.N. staffers were held, named other aid groups whose employees were detained by the Houthis across four provinces that the Houthis hold — Amran, Hodeida, Saada and Saana.
“We condemn in the strongest terms this dangerous escalation, which constitutes a violation of the privileges and immunities of United Nations employees granted to them under international law, and we consider it to be oppressive, totalitarian, blackmailing practices to obtain political and economic gains,” the organization said in a statement.
Save the Children, told the AP that it was “concerned of the whereabouts of one of our staff members in Yemen and doing everything we can to ensure his safety and well-being.” The group declined to elaborate.
CARE International also said one of its staffers had been detained without being given a reason.
“We are concerned about our colleague’s safety and are working to get more information in the coming hours and days,” said Sulafah al-Shami, a CARE spokeswoman. “Until then, we have extended our support to the family and share their hope for his speedy release.”
Other groups also are believed to have staff who were taken as well, though they did not acknowledge it publicly.
Activists, lawyers and others also began an open online letter, calling on the Houthis to immediately release those detained, because if they don't, it “helps isolate the country from the world.”
Human Rights Watch, quoting family members of those detained, said that “Houthi authorities have not revealed the locations of the people they detained or allowed them to communicate with their employers or families.”
“The Houthis should immediately release any U.N. employees and workers for other independent groups they have detained because of their human rights and humanitarian work and stop arbitrarily detaining and forcibly disappearing people," Human Rights Watch researcher Niku Jafarnia said.
Yemen's Houthi rebels and their affiliated media organisations didn't discuss the detentions, though military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree claimed attacks on Friday night on ships that hadn't been reported damaged.
The U.S. military's Central Command said the Houthis launched four anti-ship ballistic missiles over the last day that caused no damage. Separately, U.S. forces destroyed two missiles, five drones and one patrol boat, it said, something not acknowledged by the rebels.
The Iranian-backed rebels also reported new U.S.-led airstrikes on Friday hitting around the Red Sea port city of Hodeida and later in the capital, Sanaa. Several hit Hodeida's airport, the Houthi-controlled SABA news agency said, where the rebels are believed to have launched attacks previously targeting shipping in the region.
ADVERTISEMENT
It's unclear what exactly sparked the detentions. Former employees of the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, which shuttered in 2015, have also been detained and held by the Houthis.
However, it comes as the Houthis have faced issues with having enough currency to support the economy in areas they hold — something signalled by their move to introduce a new coin into the Yemeni currency, the riyal. Yemen’s exiled government in Aden and other nations criticised the move, saying the Houthis are turning to counterfeiting.
Aden authorities also have demanded all banks move their headquarters there as a means to stop the worst slide ever in the riyal's value and re-exert their control over the economy.
“Internal tensions and conflicts could spiral out of control and lead Yemen into complete economic collapse,” warned Yemeni journalist Mohammed Ali Thamer in an analysis published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Bloomberg separately reported on Thursday that the U.S. planned to further increase economic pressure on the Houthis by blocking their revenue sources, including a planned 1.3 billion euro Saudi payment to cover salaries for government employees in rebel-held territory.
ADVERTISEMENT
The war in Yemen has killed more than 150,000 people, including fighters and civilians, and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, killing tens of thousands more. The Houthis' attacks on shipping have helped deflect attention from their problems at home and the stalemated war. But they've faced increasing casualties and damage from U.S.-led airstrikes targeting the group for months now.
Thousands have been imprisoned by the Houthis during the war. An AP investigation found some detainees were scorched with acid, forced to hang from their wrists for weeks at a time or were beaten with batons. Meanwhile, the Houthis have employed child soldiers and indiscriminately laid mines in the conflict.
The Houthis previously have detained four other U.N. staffers — two in 2021 and another two in 2023. The U.N.’s human rights agency in 2023 called those detentions a “profoundly alarming situation as it reveals a complete disregard for the rule of law.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Europeans started casting their ballots in the Netherlands, Ireland, and the Czech Republic on Thursday and Friday in what might turn out to be the most controversial elections in the EU's history, while the rest of the countries have yet to vote across the union this weekend.
EU elections citizens voting schedule
The moderate conservatives of the EPP are expected to win a clear majority in the overall vote, the Euronews Super Poll on eight EU countries predicted.
The socialists are projected to be the second force. The liberals of Renew Europe should place third despite likely losing a considerable number of seats.
As for the far right, despite its robust growth, pollsters say that it will not dominate the new European Parliament.
"The vast majority of MEPs coming to Brussels following the elections will still remain robustly pro-European. Even delegations from ECR to certain degree will not question the absolute essence of the European Union," said Tomasz Kaniecki, Euronews Polls Centre analyst.
Germany
The EPP in Germany is set to reach a major score of slightly over 30% of votes. The far right is uncomfortably set at the second position, threatened by the slow but steady growth of the Social Democrats of Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The AfD has slightly slackened its growth after being hit by the scandals related to the embarrassing statements of sympathy to Nazi Germany's Waffen-SS veterans by its former European elections lead candidate Maximilian Krah and the spy cases with China and Russia that embroiled some of its members at the European Parliament during the electoral campaign.
The pollsters don't rule out that the SPD's social-democrats (S&D) might surpass the far right. The distance between the AfD and the SPD is still too close to call.
The Greens occupy a disappointing fourth position.
The liberals of the FDP (Renew Europe) have been losing ground, dragged by the average negative trend of other Renew-affiliated parties in Europe.
However, had these projections to be confirmed after the ballots counting, they would represent rather bitter results for the current so-called "traffic-light" national ruling coalition of the SPD, FDP and the Greens. Only the majority shareholders, the social-democrats, could claim a partially acceptable result thanks to their slow pace of consensus recovery.
The result of the CDU-CSU (EPP) could be regarded as a relative and objective reverberating success of the outgoing European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a historical member of the CDU and former defence minister in Angela Merkel's government.
Latest Euronews Super Poll
According to a pan-EU projections overview, the moderate forces could prevail over the so-called protest voters.
Yet, on a country-by-country basis, the predictions for the far-right forces are still impressive, as in France.
France
The National Rally of Marine Le Pen, a member of Identity and Democracy, is expected to win large, taking advantage of the social discontent of the French.
The RN list, led by Jordan Bardella, is expected to almost double Valérie Hayer's Renaissance liberals of Renew Europe.* President Emmanuel Macron's group at the European Parliament is expected to face an electoral defeat, pollsters forecasted the polls.
Macron's popularity is low for national political reasons. The élysée's group of reference in Strasbourg is Renew Europe. The French MEPs from the Renaissance party have been the backbone of the grand coalition despite its numerical minority size compared with its senior partners, the EPP and the S&D.
Macronisme was regarded by the moderates across Europe as a dynamic political proposal that could have relaunched the EU after the financial crisis and Brexit, but according to the polls, it will hardly be the case again in the new legislature.
ADVERTISEMENT
The French Socialists (S&D) of Rapha？l Glucksman, like their pairs in other big European countries, are slowly and gently recovering, and they still hope to overtake Renew and settle in the second position.
Euronews Super Poll, France
Italy
War and peace and the Ukrainian question are likely to become the most important topics for the next EU legislature. The European Parliament's political forces will be asked to overcome their divisions to tackle this major geopolitical challenge, which is why the results of the European elections in Italy seem relevant for the next legislature.
There, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's far-right party is set to win big. Her Brothers of Italy, or FdL, is a member of the European Conservative and Reformists (ECR) group that might back the moderate forces in order to create a functional majority.
The pollsters and the EU politics "bookmakers" are betting on the fracture between the radical right of ECR and Le Pen's lead Identity and Democracy.
If it happens, the current big tent coalition, which is likely to be revived, will count ECR's votes to make the European Parliament functional.
ADVERTISEMENT
The big shots of the ECR are Meloni's FdI and Kaczyński's PiS from Poland. Both parties are openly pro-NATO and pro-West. The EU could count on them when major decisions concerning Ukraine are to be adopted.
Steven Van Hecke, a professor of EU Politics at the Ku Leuven, explained: "There is still a big divide, even between the ECR and the Identity and Democracy group. So I would rather see the EPP working together with the ECR to negotiate deals with the social democrats and the liberals than these two making deals with identity and democracy."
Euronews Super Poll Italy
Polls predict that the PD (S&D) has increased its ratings to two times that of Salvini's Lega.
Spain
After Germany, Spain is the other stronghold of the EPP in this election. The PP's moderate-conservatives are to win the elections. Yet, the socialists of Prime Minister Sanchez are right behind them in the polls, and the result is still too close to call.
The Euronews Super Polls confirm that far-right Vox (ECR) will reach a rather good score, yet not as strong as its leadership and supporters expected.
ADVERTISEMENT
Euronews Super Poll Spain
However, EU voters will clearly shift the balance of the union to the right, reverberating in the EU institutions and affecting the reality throughout the bloc at the national level.
Poland
Poland is politically peculiar, as pollsters say the centre-left and the left are almost nonexistent. The clash of the giants in the Central European country will be between the Coalition of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, KO (EPP), and the PiS (ECR) ultraconservatives.
The PiS party is leading the polls over the KO,* yet the projections still suggest a result that is too close to call.
Euronews Super Poll Poland
ADVERTISEMENT
The most recent inflationary crisis began in 2022, following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with the EU's harmonized consumer price index peaking at 10.6% in October 2022.
In response, the European Central Bank (ECB) began raising interest rates, putting households and businesses under pressure due to the high value of their bank payments.
Two years later, inflation in the euro zone has fallen to 2.6% - close to the 2% considered the ideal rate -, which is why the ECB made an announcement that should bring relief.
The reduction in interest rates by 25 basis points was explained by its president, Christine Lagarde, as a prudent decision given the risks that still exist.
"We are determined to ensure that inflation returns to our 2% medium-term target in a timely manner. We will keep policy rates sufficiently restrictive for as long as necessary to achieve this aim," she told a press conference.
Farmers protest again
“Warrior farmers” is what participants in a demonstration this week in Brussels called themselves. They are dissatisfied with the recent changes introduced to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to respond to the wave of protests that has lasted for half a year.
The protest was called by agricultural organisations close to the far right, and included speakers belonging to these parties from Poland, Belgium and the Netherlands, for example. Copa-Cogeca, the main federation of European farmers, did not participate.
However, the organisers rejected this association, with Sieta van Keimpema of the Farmers Defence Force saying "this is a lie we have heard repeatedly. There is no politics in this protest and there is nothing extreme except people lying".
It is essential to produce quality food at a fair price, but also to avoid food waste, which is equivalent to 20% of what is purchased by consumers. Food waste has a significant environmental impact in terms of land and water use, but also in terms of polluting gas emissions that affect the climate.
To discuss solutions, the European Commission this week hosted the European Forum on Consumer Food Waste, with researchers and other professionals including Christophe Diercxsens, director of Public Affairs at social impact company Too Good To Go.
“The European Commission has put on the table a proposal to introduce legally binding targets for reducing food waste in the EU, which is currently being negotiated in the EU institutions,” he explained to Euronews.
“At the consumer level, it is important to have more educational campaigns so that there is a new respect for food and also to use a little common sense with certain practices. So, learning to cook with surplus ingredients, for example, having leftovers from the day, for example," he added.
(Watch the full programme in the video player above)