The UN has suspended movement in Houthi-controlled areas after officials were detained

The United Nations (UN) said it has halted all movement in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen after a number of UN staff were detained by the armed group in the capital Sanaa.

The UN said it was actively engaging with senior Houthi officials to try to secure the release of all its detained staff. There is still no official statement from the Houthis.

This is not the first time the group has detained UN officials – a number of staff were detained last year. The Houthis have also detained about 20 Yemeni employees of the US embassy over the past three years.

Human rights groups also accuse the movement of abducting, torturing and arbitrarily detaining hundreds of civilians.

The Iranian-backed Houthis have been fighting the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen for nearly a decade. The conflict, which erupted after the Houthis ousted Yemen’s then-government, has largely been at a standstill for the past two years.

But the Houthis have again attracted international attention for targeting ships in the Red Sea and firing rockets at Israel over the past fifteen months, which they say is in support of Hamas and the Palestinians.

Their actions prompted retaliatory strikes on Houthi positions in Yemen by the US, Israel and the UK.

Since the Gaza truce began, the Houthis have said they would scale back their attacks on ships and stop firing on Israel if it continued with the truce.

One of President Trump’s first acts upon taking office, however, was to order the Houthis to be returned to the US list of foreign terrorist organizations.

Despite all this, the group continues to control large areas of Yemen.

The country was the poorest in the Middle East before the war began in 2015. Hundreds of thousands of people have since died in the fighting or from disease and starvation exacerbated by the conflict.

UN agencies are providing a vital lifeline to millions of Yemenis with their food and medical aid.

But they have regularly had trouble reaching people in more remote areas outside major cities, with Houthi officials regularly reported to have obstructed the delivery of humanitarian aid to regions they control.