A wave of arrests in January has intensified the climate of fear in the Houthi rebels’ control areas, a BBC report found .
The report added that the situation has left humanitarian workers feeling their freedom of movement has been greatly restricted. As a result, many organizations, including the UN, are scaling back operations, threatening to make life for people already devastated by war even worse
BBC reporter interviewed aid workers, among them one who works for a US-funded non-governmental organization (NGO) in Yemen, who told BBC that when she arrived at work a few months ago, she found "drawers and doors smashed, and the boss surrounded by security personnel" adding that computers, phones, cameras and documents were all confiscated, her boss was arrested and the organization's bank account was eventually frozen.
The lady used to work for an NGO 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, and one staff from the World Food Program who was detained died in custody.
The NGO staff told BBC that when she realized that It was Houthi rebels who raided her office and detained her boss, she feared retribution if she speaks out and feared things would get worse for her, so she decided to leave her home in Sana’a and headed to the south, where she felt traumatized. "For three days I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. I couldn't stop crying," she says.
About half of Yemen's population needs humanitarian assistance, according to UNICEF
Now she's worried that US President Donald Trump's decision to re-designate the Houthis as a terrorist organization 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 organization'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 organization.
Finding clean water is a huge challenge for those living in camps for displaced people
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.
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.
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.
As well as struggling to find water, 64% of households surveyed in Yemen couldn't get enough food in December 2024, according to the WFP