UN's Collective Punishment of 21 Million Yemenis While Condemning Israel
UN's Hypocrisy: Punishing Yemen's Millions and Fostering Terrorism
In one of those case of “You can’t make this sh*t up, UN Secretary-General António Guterres made the deeply troubling decision to suspend all operations by UN agencies and humanitarian programs in Yemen’s Houthi-controlled Sa’ada governorate. The UN’s decision to suspend humanitarian aid operations in Yemen’s Houthi-controlled Sa'ada governorate, after the kidnapping of eight more UN workers on January 23, is a stunning hypocrisy and true collective punishment.
In fact, this is not a new phenomenon. Back in May 2024, over a dozen humanitarian workers were taken hostage by the Houthis. Yet, despite the severity of these incidents, the media has barely mentioned their plight, and the UN has not even spoken their names. We don’t know their identities or nationalities. We don’t know whether they are even safe.
On May 31, 2024, for over two weeks the Houthis conducted a series of raids in areas under their control, kidnapping 13 UN staff and at least 50 staff from Yemeni and international civil society organizations. To date, only three people have been released – one UN staff member and two NGO staff members. The rest remain detained without access to a lawyer or their families and without charge.
For over 16 months, we’ve heard UN Secretary-General António Guterres repeatedly accuse Israel of "collectively punishing" the Palestinian people, framing the situation in Gaza as an international catastrophe and injustice, all while failing to do the most basic thing, condemn Hamas for its October 7th massacre. Yet, as Gaza receives 27 times more aid per person than the rest of the world’s 300 million people in dire need. António Guterres is collectively punishing the 21 million starving, innocent civilians of Yemen, where at least 80 percent of the population relies on aid. And, in doing so, he is turning a blind eye to the true culprit: an Iran backed terrorist organization that has taken UN workers hostage and refuses to release them.
The UN’s decision to suspend humanitarian aid operations in Yemen’s Houthi-controlled Sa'ada governorate, after the kidnapping of eight more UN workers on January 23, is a stunning betrayal. This decision not only ignores the brutal reality facing millions of Yemenis who are dependent on life-saving aid, but it is a clear case of the UN itself punishing the innocent—something it has vocally condemned when it comes to Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Guterres’s stance has been loud and clear when condemning "collective punishment" in the case of Gaza—an accusation that is not only unsubstantiated, but now seems even more hypocritical. The true collective punishment is happening right now in Yemen. The UN is punishing Yemen’s most vulnerable, denying over 21 million people vital aid because of the actions of a terrorist organization that has been kidnapping UN and humanitarian workers for months.
What’s perhaps even more outrageous is the almost total media silence on this issue. No international headlines, no spotlight on these workers, and no outcry from the same world that so vehemently criticizes Israel’s actions. These kidnapped individuals—who remain nameless and faceless in the eyes of the global community—are not even officially referred to as hostages by the UN itself. Instead, the language used to describe them is sanitized and distant. They are merely "detained," as though they were arrested by a legitimate government after committing a crime. But these people are victims, kidnapped by a violent, illegitimate terrorist group.
This double standard is impossible to ignore. The UN has spent over a year falsely condemning what it calls "collective punishment" in Gaza while, in Yemen, it is enacting the same kind of punishment against millions of innocent civilians that it supposedly stands against. These humanitarian workers deserve recognition, accountability, and an urgent response. Instead, they are left nameless, erased from the narrative, as the world watches in silence.
It is time for the international community, and the UN, to stop playing politics!
