Killing, intimidating and persecuting aid workers... How are the Houthis preventing aid from reaching Yemen's poor?

Displaced people in Yemen living in Houthi-controlled areas are facing a crisis due to the suspension of humanitarian aid, after the persecution of aid workers and local and international organizations and the freezing of US support, which classified the Houthis as a terrorist group.

Yemeni displaced people told the BBC that "reducing aid means a death sentence," while the Houthis were supposed to be designated a foreign terrorist organization on January 22, and were supposed to come into effect after 30 days.

Amal does not know how her family will survive if the food aid they receive from international organizations is cut off or reduced. Amal lives with her nine children in a camp for displaced people in northern Yemen.

Like the majority of Yemenis now, the residents of the camp, which houses thousands of families, depend on humanitarian supplies provided by local and international NGOs.

“Any reduction in aid would be a death sentence for us,” Amal told me over the phone, her voice groaning from the burdens life has forced her to bear, according to the BBC report. She receives a monthly food basket from the World Food Programme that she says is only enough for two weeks.

Even obtaining this basket is no longer guaranteed after many humanitarian organizations, led by the United Nations, resorted to limiting relief activities that provide most Yemenis with the means of life.

The decision to scale back aid distribution activities was taken after the Iran-backed Houthis arrested 24 UN staff and a number of other workers from local and international humanitarian organizations in recent months.

In January of this year, a new group of UN aid workers, the exact number of whom is not known, was arrested, and the arrests created a state of fear that restricted the freedom of movement of those responsible for distributing aid.

The United Nations ranks Yemen among the ten least developed countries in the world, according to the Human Development Index, which reveals the level of well-being of peoples. More than half of the country's population needs aid, according to UNICEF.

We have nothing

All of the people we spoke to asked to remain anonymous to speak to us, according to the BBC, as they live under Houthi control and residents of these areas fear being persecuted or hounded by security forces. Therefore, we have used pseudonyms for all the people in this story, and we refrain from specifying the exact locations of the events.

Amal supports her large family alone, because her husband is sick and unable to work. She feels that life has bared its fangs since she began a long and arduous journey of displacement, more than 10 years ago, until she arrived at this camp located in a barren desert.

“If we are cut off from food and medicine, my children will die. We have nothing left in this life,” Amal told the BBC. Her family was forced to leave their home in 2015 after the war broke out.

Begging or starving?

Amal's youngest of nine children is about five years old, and the family lives in a tattered plastic tent that provides little protection from the heat or cold. The tent has little furniture to speak of, no beds, chairs, or even heavy blankets to protect them from the harsh desert winter.

After the monthly food basket runs out, Amal is forced to leave the camp to go to restaurants and markets and beg for a few loaves of bread or a little rice and lentils to feed her nine children.

"I feel ashamed to extend my hand to ask. But I have no choice. Should I let my children starve?" she says, often bursting into tears from the tightness of her hands and her sense of helplessness.

The World Food Programme explains that about 70% of displaced families struggle to meet their most basic food needs.

persecution of aid workers

On February 10, the World Food Programme mourned the death of one of its staff members “in detention. He had been arbitrarily detained by the de facto authorities (the Houthis) on January 23, 2025. It called for an immediate and transparent investigation to hold accountable those responsible for this “horrific tragedy that is unclear.”

Abdelaziz is deeply concerned about the fate of his clients, as he does not know where they are being held. He represents 14 humanitarian workers who have been behind bars since last year, including three UN workers.

"Contact with them was completely cut off during the first three months of their detention," Abdul Aziz said.

In the following months, the detainees were able to make a few short phone calls to their families, “each lasting between five and ten minutes.” Abdul Aziz does not know what will happen to his clients.

Concerns are mounting about the deteriorating conditions of the displaced, as the Houthis continue to persecute civil society workers. Hana recalls the moment she walked into her office in the capital, Sanaa, to find “the doors smashed, my manager surrounded by security men, and all the office’s equipment, cameras and phones confiscated.” She says the raid, which took place a few months ago, is etched in her memory forever.

Hana works for a US-funded NGO that empowers women and trains local cadres to resolve community and political issues through negotiation. She also works with other organizations to provide identity papers to displaced people who lost their belongings during displacement, so they can start a new life.

But she left Sanaa and headed to the south of the country, far from Houthi influence, after her director was detained and accused of espionage. A day after his arrest, Hanaa sat in front of the TV to watch the Houthi-affiliated Al-Masirah channel broadcast what she described as the confessions of the “American spy network,” referring to a group of local employees at the US embassy in Sanaa who were arrested in 2021. The embassy closed its doors in 2015 after the Houthis took control of the capital.

Hanaa said that she felt at the time that leaving was an inevitable decision, because the Houthis were targeting anyone linked to any foreign party.

Smear and intimidation campaigns

Hanaa believes that the Houthis’ pursuit of civil society institutions aims to terrorize citizens. But what hurts her most is how public opinion received what she describes as the Houthis’ smear campaigns against members of civil society. “I was shocked when I looked at social media to find people believing that we are agents and spies,” she says.

After a difficult journey, Hanaa managed to reach the south of the country, where she sat “in continuous crying for three days after losing the desire to eat anything.” The shock was more than she could bear.

Hana’s fears are growing now that US President Donald Trump has recently designated the Houthis as a terrorist group. The Houthis could lash out at anyone working for US-funded organizations following the designation.

Yemen has received massive aid from the United States, totaling about $6 billion since late 2014, according to data from the US mission to Yemen.

Much of that aid comes through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which Trump recently suspended for 90 days while spending is reviewed. Many of the projects funded by the agency in more than 100 countries around the world are now at risk after his decision to cut staff and freeze bank accounts.

Human Rights Watch warned of the "devastating impact" of the US president's policies as well as "arbitrary arrests by the Houthis."

Niko Jafarnia, a researcher on Yemen and Bahrain at the rights group, told the BBC that designating the Houthis as terrorists, along with freezing USAID’s work, would have “huge implications for aid delivery.” The US agency is responsible for about a third of the aid provided to Yemen, Jafarnia explained.

Clinics without medicine

Many children in the camp suffer from diarrhea and pneumonia due to poor living standards, lack of food and poor health conditions. There is little treatment available.

The shelves of some clinics in the area remain empty for weeks. The BBC has learned from workers there that the available stock of medicines does not match the scale of need or the number of patients.

The BBC contacted several UN agencies to inquire about the progress of aid distribution in Houthi areas, but received no response.

But Hans Grundberg, the special humanitarian envoy for Yemen, told the UN Security Council that the Houthis’ persecution of aid workers was not only “a violation of basic human rights, but also a direct threat to the UN’s ability to assist millions of people in need.”

I accepted my fate

Samira is not optimistic about the future. She tells us that she has not had a good day since her husband died years ago. She lives with Amal in the same camp, along with her four children. Samira wonders in a miserable voice, “What will happen to my children if I die? This is the question that haunts me every night, preventing me from sleeping.”

Samira resorts to selling half of the monthly food basket she receives from the World Food Programme because she needs money to buy bottles of water for her children, as there is no water in the camp. Anyone walking around the area will notice long lines of men, women and children, each carrying huge bottles to provide their water needs.

Yasser, Samira's eldest son, works as a car washer to help his mother support his younger siblings. He wished to go to school and even dreamed of completing his studies outside Yemen, but he says resignedly, "This is my destiny and I have accepted it."

Source: BBC