Office raids and arrests shock aid workers in Yemen

When Hanaa arrived at work a few months ago, she found “drawers and doors smashed, and the boss surrounded by security personnel”.

Computers, phones, cameras and documents were all confiscated, her boss was arrested and the organisation’s bank account was eventually frozen.

Hanaa works for a US-funded non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Yemen, that supports women’s empowerment and trains people to solve problems through negotiation.

But the country’s civil war, which has lasted more than a decade and created one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, has made life for NGO workers increasingly dangerous.

Twenty-four UN employees, along with workers from other local and international NGOs have been detained by Houthi rebels in the past few months.

A wave of arrests in January has intensified the climate of fear – one person from the World Food Programme who was detained died in custody.

The situation has left humanitarian workers feeling their freedom of movement has been greatly restricted. As a result, many organisations, including the UN, are scaling back operations, threatening to make life for people already devastated by war even worse.

Ten years ago, Iranian-backed Houthi militants seized control of much of the west of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, from the internationally-recognised government. Saudi Arabia, has since carried out intensive air raids on its neighbour – with logistical and intelligence support from the US and UK – to try to prevent the Houthi rebels from taking control of the whole country.

It was Houthi officials who raided Hanaa’s office and detained her boss, and she fears retribution if she speaks out. So, for their safety, we have changed the names of Hanaa and others in Yemen who we interviewed for this article.

By cracking down on humanitarian workers, Hanaa believes the Houthis aim to spread fear among the public. But what hurts her deeply is how the public reacted.

“When I checked social media, it was appalling to find out that people see us as spies,” she says.

A day after her boss was detained, Hanaa was glued to her TV, watching a pro-Houthi channel airing what it described as confessions of espionage, made by nine local people who had once worked at the long-closed US embassy in Sanaa. They were arrested in 2021.

That was the moment she feared things would get worse for her, as she worked for a US-funded NGO. She decided to leave her home in northern Yemen.

By the time she reached the south, she felt traumatised. “For three days I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stop crying,” she says.

Now she’s worried that US President Donald Trump’s decision to re-designate the Houthis as a terrorist organisation could lead them to target everyone who works in US-funded projects.

Once someone is arrested, it can be hard for them to get any support, according to Yemeni lawyer Abdulaziz, who represents 14 detainees. They have been behind bars for several months – three are UN staff, while the others are employed by local NGOs. “During the first three months of detention, my clients didn’t communicate with anyone,” he says.

Abdulaziz is getting increasingly worried that their whereabouts is still unknown. More recently, he says that his clients were able to make a few brief phone calls to their families. “Each call was between five to 10 minutes,” he explains.

The BBC approached the Houthis to ask about their treatment of aid workers, but got no reply.

In addition to the detentions, lifesaving assistance from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been paused as a result of President Trump’s freeze on the organisation’s operations around the world, amid allegations of waste and misuse of funds.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) warns that that the impact of President Trump’s policies and the Houthis’ arbitrary arrests is “nothing short of devastating”. It “will have massive and dramatic impact on aid provision in Yemen”, says Niku Jafarnia, a Yemen and Bahrain researcher at the organisation.

According to HRW, the US was funding about one third of humanitarian aid in Yemen, much of it through USAID. Between 2015 and 2021, it provided more than $3.6 billion, making it the largest single donor of humanitarian assistance in the country, according to the UN.

“Cutting aid would be a death sentence to us,” warns Amal, a mother of nine. She lives in a camp for internally displaced people in northern Yemen, alongside thousands of other families.

Even over the phone, it is clear what a heavy burden this woman is carrying. Her slow speech is laden with emotion. It is nearly 10 years since she lost her home.

Amal singlehandedly supports her huge family. Her husband has acute asthma, so he can’t work. The family had to flee their hometown further north after the conflict began.

Since then, life has been increasingly unkind to them. The camp, on barren desert land, hardly resembles a home. Their only shelter is a worn-out plastic tent, with no chairs or beds. It is hard for her children to find joy in a place which lacks almost everything.

“If this supply line provided by NGOs is cut, my children might die. We have no jobs, no income, nothing,” Amal adds.

About half of the population are in bad need of humanitarian assistance, including nearly 10 million children, according to the UN children’s charity Unicef. The UN Human Development Index lists Yemen as one of the 10 least developed countries in the world.

Amal tells us she receives a monthly food basket from the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), but it barely lasts two weeks. When they run out of food, she says her only option is to leave the camp and go out begging in the city’s streets. She passes restaurants and shops, hoping for a few loaves of bread or a packet of rice.

“I am covered in shame, but should I leave my children to starve? I am totally helpless,” Amal explains. Helplessness often takes its toll on her. “I cry a lot when I realise that I don’t have a penny,” she says, her voice both anguished and bitter.

A large number of children suffer from diarrhoea and pneumonia due to the poor hygiene, malnutrition and miserable living conditions, but adequate medication is rarely available.

At a clinic in northern Yemen, the shelves where medicines should be lie empty. Staff told us the medical stock they have is nothing compared to the people’s needs.

The BBC contacted the UN seeking comment on the current aid distribution process and recent arrests but received no reply.

However, addressing the UN Security Council, Hans Grundberg, the UN Special envoy for Yemen, condemned the detention of its staff as “not only a violation of fundamental human rights, but also a direct threat to the UN’s ability to distribute aid to the most needy”. He also called for the immediate release of all detainees, whether from the UN or from other local and international NGOs.

It is for families like Amal’s that Hanaa and her co-workers try to make life better.

She proudly remembers how they sent girls to school in one of the conservative northern areas. When parents complained about neighbours being able to see their daughters during break time, “we held discussions between residents, and eventually agreed to cover the playground, so that girls could go back to class”, she explains.

She fears that the absence of this support, due to fear and lack of funds, could increase rates of illiteracy. “We are the only ones who have survived during the collapse of the state, in order to serve the people,” Hanaa says with a sigh.

The names of Hanaa, Abdulaziz and Amal were changed for this article.