Aid distribution impeded in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen: UN

ADEN -- International agencies faced a slew of bureaucratic impediments as they attempted to distribute aid in Yemen this year, with the greatest number of restrictions occurring in areas controlled by the Iran-backed Houthis.

In a quarterly report published June 20, the United Nations (UN) Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Yemen says 89% of incidents restricting the movement of goods and aid occurred in Houthi-controlled areas.

The distribution of humanitarian aid in Yemen remains a challenge because of bureaucratic impediments, it said, noting that obstacles imposed by the Houthis, paired with funding shortages, may result in increasing the level of famine.

Aid operations continue to be difficult in Saada and Hajjah provinces, OCHA said, as protection and gender-related programmes are prohibited.

During the first quarter of 2022, humanitarian partners reported 701 delivery-related incidents in 100 districts in 21 provinces in Yemen, affecting 5.6 million people, the report said.

More than 60% of the reported delivery-related incidents in this time period involved bureaucratic impediments resulting in restrictions on the movement of aid organisations' staff and goods within Yemen, it added.

The impediments include denied travel permits, delays, cancellation of missions and travel activities, and the requirement that female employees be accompanied by a male relative in the field.

"Agencies continued to face serious obstacles in delivering principled humanitarian assistance," OCHA said in its annual report for 2021.

"These obstacles persisted across the country, but they remained the most severe in areas controlled by the Houthi de facto authorities."

Impeding aid distribution

This is not the first time the Houthis have impeded the operations of international aid organisations, economist Faris al-Najjar told Al-Mashareq, accusing the Iran-backed group of plundering and looting aid.

Yemeni Deputy Minister of Legal Affairs and Human Rights Nabil Abdul Hafeez accused the Houthis' Aid Co-ordination Council of interfering with the food distribution lists.

The council interferes with the aid process both directly and indirectly, he explained, by requiring that certain names be added to distribution lists as a condition for allowing aid to reach the public.

The council also stipulates that international aid organisations must employ Houthi-affiliated individuals or companies to monitor aid work, he said.

According to the former employee of a relief organisation in Sanaa, who asked that her name not be used, the Houthis' Aid Co-ordination Council required that she be accompanied by a close male relative for aid activities in rural Sanaa.

The WFP has explicitly accused two Houthi leaders of interfering in aid operations, Abdul Hafeez said.

Economist Abdul Aziz Thabet said the Houthis have created a civilian apparatus to organise the distribution of aid, adding families of their own loyalists, their own recruits and even "ghosts" to the list of recipients.

Adding the names of fighters killed on the battlefront to the list enables the group to claim additional benefits to which it is not entitled.

The council also forcibly prioritises areas loyal to the Houthis, such as Saada, for receiving aid, he said.

Critical shortage of funding

With planned reductions in the amount of humanitarian aid to Yemen, impediments to the distribution of aid will have more serious consequences for the people who rely on this support, observers said.

The World Food Programme (WFP) recently announced that it intends to reduce aid to beneficiaries in Yemen by up to 50% as it faces several challenges.

"Critical funding gaps, global inflation and the knock-on effects of the war in Ukraine have forced WFP in Yemen to make some extremely tough decisions about the support we provide to our beneficiaries," WFP said on Twitter.

"We are now being driven to scale back that support for five million of those people to less than 50% of the daily requirement, and for the other eight million to around 25% of the daily requirement," it said in a June 26 post.

"Resilience and livelihood activities, and school feeding and nutrition programmes, will cease for four million people, leaving assistance available for only 1.8 million people," the agency said.