Surging cholera cases in Yemen's Houthi-held territories

Yemen’s rival parties are making military preparations and threatening to return to war as hunger and cholera are increasing in the Arab world’s poorest nation, UN officials said Thursday.

UN special representative Hans Grundberg told the Security Council that despite ongoing serious efforts to shield Yemen, Houthi militants continue to attack ships in the Red Sea and the United States and United Kingdom responding with strikes on military targets in Houthi-controlled areas.

Yemen has been engulfed in civil war since 2014, when the Iranian-backed Houthis seized much of northern Yemen and forced the internationally recognized government to flee from the capital, Sanaa. An Arab Coalition intervened the following year in support of government forces.

While fighting has decreased considerably since a six-month truce in 2022, Grundberg expressed deep concern at the trajectory of events in Yemen over the past months.

He also pointed to the rebels’ detention of dozens of Yemenis working for the UN, civil society, national and international organizations, diplomatic missions and the private sector — and the closure of the UN human rights office in Sanaa followed by Houthi security forces storming the office Aug. 3.

Grundberg called it “an ominous signal” of the broader direction the Houthis are taking and said it represents “a serious attack” on the UN’s ability to work in Yemen.