n recent days, militias allied with the Yemeni Houthi government have raided the houses and workplaces of more than 50 Yemenis working for international organizations. Men, women and even young children were kidnapped, at times in the middle of the night, and dragged out into the street in humiliation before being taken away to prison. Extremist Houthi officials have accused those that were taken of espionage. In reality, they are guilty of nothing more than dedicating their lives to Yemen’s survival, staying behind while the great majority of the country’s intelligentsia and elite have fled.
While political detentions and threats issued against international aid organizations have been used regularly by the Houthi militias since their seizure of Sana’a in 2014, the recent flurry of arrests comes amid a concerted ideological and military effort to publicly ally with Iran and distract the public’s attention from the corruption and violence that has come to characterize Houthi rule in Yemen. Their militias have turned the Red Sea into a zone of military conflict, attacking civilian shipping passing through Bab al–Mandeb strait, thereby transforming Yemen’s greatest potential geographic asset into its greatest liability.
The country’s greatest resource, however, is the talent of its people. Since the Houthi militias have seized control of Sana’a, tens of thousands of Yemen’s most educated academic, technocrats, and intellectuals have been forced into permanent exile under threat of their lives. Many of those who stayed behind were arrested under spurious charges of aiding the “enemy.” Those few who remained live under constant threat and intimidation, knowing that at any moment their lives and those of their families could be upended. For more than 50 Yemenis, that moment came earlier this month.
Responding to the growing economic sanctions and international military strikes against the militia, Houthi leadership sought a scapegoat for their failed policies and for dragging their country into a regional conflict, to the detriment of 20 million Yemenis already suffering from malnutrition and chronic shortages. With no American or British citizens in the country, the Houthis resorted to arresting Yemenis. These included former employees of the U.S. Embassy and USAID, and members of the country teams for the UN High Commission for Human Rights, the National Democratic Institute, the World Food Program, and other non–governmental organizations. These 50 join an already long list of UN employees and other Yemenis working for international organizations that remain detained without charges and without the right to speak with their families.
Nor was this the only time in recent history that authorities in Yemen sought an international scapegoat for failed political and military efforts. During the Yemeni civil war in the 1960s, the occupying Egyptian army was drawn into a Vietnam–like quagmire that threatened the country’s economic well–being and their standing and the reputation of the Arab Nationalist Movement among the other nations of the Middle East. Rather than acknowledge defeat or seek to reform flawed policies, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser accused USAID employees of undermining the Yemeni revolutionary state and its Egyptian patrons. In 1966, several USAID employees were arrested, while the rest of the staff was declared persona non grata and given 24 hours to leave Yemen.
Detentions of foreigners continued over the subsequent months and reached a crescendo after the Israeli defeat of Egypt in the June 1967 Six Day War. In the immediate after of the war, Egyptian soldiers scoured the countryside searching for Americans, upon whose shoulders they hoped to lay the culpability for their country’s ignominious defeat. Every foreign NGO was targeted, including the then newly–founded Southern Baptist Hospital in Jibla, where only the quick–thinking response of the head nurse was able to save the American staff from arrest. When asked whether the staff was from America, she responded: “No, we’re from Texas!” This placated the geographically–disinclined soldiers and left a group of eight Southern Baptist missionaries as the last remaining Americans in Yemen until the 1970s.
Once again, a regional conflict has impacted this southwest corner of South Arabia. And, once again, leadership in Yemen has sought to dismiss their personal culpability and instead accuse foreign elements of contributing to their futility.
In 2024, this brave group of Yemenis served as one of the last remaining windows into Yemeni society, running programs for humanitarian aid, social development, and public health. With no metrics upon which to base international aid and funding, these Yemenis conducted important surveys and helped direct international funding to segments of Yemeni society in dire need. In their delusional interpretation of reality, Houthi authorities characterized all contact with donor agencies as the communications of a vast American–Israeli spy ring, bent on undermining the Yemeni state. All surveys and reports were similarly dismissed as clandestine intelligence gathering.
The truth of events in Yemen, however, has been overshadowed by the power, influence, and ubiquitous nature of the Houthi Almasirah Media Network, which spreads fiction as fact to an audience eager to believe their propaganda. Houthi authorities, taking advantage of the world’s attention being diverted elsewhere, have used this moment to exercise authoritarian rule over Yemen’s civil sector, further isolating the country. All the while, Yemenis, both at home and abroad, watch helplessly as the last remaining hope for their country is carted off to prison.
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In Yemen, another crackdown squelches hope for help
Old City of Sana’a, near its historic Yemen Gate. Photo by Jeremy Fugleberg.
June 24, 2024
Houthi authorities, taking advantage of the world’s attention being diverted elsewhere, have used this moment to exercise authoritarian rule over Yemen’s civil sector, further isolating the country, writes Asher Orkaby.
I
n recent days, militias allied with the Yemeni Houthi government have raided the houses and workplaces of more than 50 Yemenis working for international organizations. Men, women and even young children were kidnapped, at times in the middle of the night, and dragged out into the street in humiliation before being taken away to prison. Extremist Houthi officials have accused those that were taken of espionage. In reality, they are guilty of nothing more than dedicating their lives to Yemen’s survival, staying behind while the great majority of the country’s intelligentsia and elite have fled.
While political detentions and threats issued against international aid organizations have been used regularly by the Houthi militias since their seizure of Sana’a in 2014, the recent flurry of arrests comes amid a concerted ideological and military effort to publicly ally with Iran and distract the public’s attention from the corruption and violence that has come to characterize Houthi rule in Yemen. Their militias have turned the Red Sea into a zone of military conflict, attacking civilian shipping passing through Bab al–Mandeb strait, thereby transforming Yemen’s greatest potential geographic asset into its greatest liability.
The country’s greatest resource, however, is the talent of its people. Since the Houthi militias have seized control of Sana’a, tens of thousands of Yemen’s most educated academic, technocrats, and intellectuals have been forced into permanent exile under threat of their lives. Many of those who stayed behind were arrested under spurious charges of aiding the “enemy.” Those few who remained live under constant threat and intimidation, knowing that at any moment their lives and those of their families could be upended. For more than 50 Yemenis, that moment came earlier this month.
Responding to the growing economic sanctions and international military strikes against the militia, Houthi leadership sought a scapegoat for their failed policies and for dragging their country into a regional conflict, to the detriment of 20 million Yemenis already suffering from malnutrition and chronic shortages. With no American or British citizens in the country, the Houthis resorted to arresting Yemenis. These included former employees of the U.S. Embassy and USAID, and members of the country teams for the UN High Commission for Human Rights, the National Democratic Institute, the World Food Program, and other non–governmental organizations. These 50 join an already long list of UN employees and other Yemenis working for international organizations that remain detained without charges and without the right to speak with their families.
Nor was this the only time in recent history that authorities in Yemen sought an international scapegoat for failed political and military efforts. During the Yemeni civil war in the 1960s, the occupying Egyptian army was drawn into a Vietnam–like quagmire that threatened the country’s economic well–being and their standing and the reputation of the Arab Nationalist Movement among the other nations of the Middle East. Rather than acknowledge defeat or seek to reform flawed policies, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser accused USAID employees of undermining the Yemeni revolutionary state and its Egyptian patrons. In 1966, several USAID employees were arrested, while the rest of the staff was declared persona non grata and given 24 hours to leave Yemen.
Detentions of foreigners continued over the subsequent months and reached a crescendo after the Israeli defeat of Egypt in the June 1967 Six Day War. In the immediate after of the war, Egyptian soldiers scoured the countryside searching for Americans, upon whose shoulders they hoped to lay the culpability for their country’s ignominious defeat. Every foreign NGO was targeted, including the then newly–founded Southern Baptist Hospital in Jibla, where only the quick–thinking response of the head nurse was able to save the American staff from arrest. When asked whether the staff was from America, she responded: “No, we’re from Texas!” This placated the geographically–disinclined soldiers and left a group of eight Southern Baptist missionaries as the last remaining Americans in Yemen until the 1970s.
Once again, a regional conflict has impacted this southwest corner of South Arabia. And, once again, leadership in Yemen has sought to dismiss their personal culpability and instead accuse foreign elements of contributing to their futility.
In 2024, this brave group of Yemenis served as one of the last remaining windows into Yemeni society, running programs for humanitarian aid, social development, and public health. With no metrics upon which to base international aid and funding, these Yemenis conducted important surveys and helped direct international funding to segments of Yemeni society in dire need. In their delusional interpretation of reality, Houthi authorities characterized all contact with donor agencies as the communications of a vast American–Israeli spy ring, bent on undermining the Yemeni state. All surveys and reports were similarly dismissed as clandestine intelligence gathering.
The truth of events in Yemen, however, has been overshadowed by the power, influence, and ubiquitous nature of the Houthi Almasirah Media Network, which spreads fiction as fact to an audience eager to believe their propaganda. Houthi authorities, taking advantage of the world’s attention being diverted elsewhere, have used this moment to exercise authoritarian rule over Yemen’s civil sector, further isolating the country. All the while, Yemenis, both at home and abroad, watch helplessly as the last remaining hope for their country is carted off to prison.
