:quality(85)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/WI47YXWQ4BAYLDKLE35A7WVL7E.jpg "Houthis ordered US and British citizens to leave Yemen")
Yemen’s Houthi authorities have ordered American and British staff from the United Nations and humanitarian organizations based in Sana’a to leave the country within a month, a document and a local official revealed Wednesday.
The decision comes after attacks by the United States and the United Kingdom, with the support of other countries, against military targets of the Iran-aligned group, which has been launching attacks against commercial ships in the Red Sea.
Last week, the US government again included the Houthis on its list of terrorist groups, in an attempt to stop attacks against international shipping in the Red Sea.
“The ministry (…) wishes to emphasize that it must inform officials and workers with US and British citizenship to prepare to leave the country within 30 days,” said a letter sent by the Houthi Foreign Ministry to the acting UN humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, Peter Hawkins.
The letter also orders foreign organizations not to hire American and British citizens for Yemen operations.
Houthi chief negotiator Mohammed Abdulsalam confirmed the authenticity of the letter to Reuters. The office of Hawkins, a British national, did not respond to a request for comment.
The U.S. Embassy said in a statement that it is aware of reports about the letter, but “cannot speak on behalf of the UN or humanitarian organizations in Yemen about what they may have received from Houthi ‘authorities’.”
The British embassy said staff had not yet been ordered to leave the country and that the mission was in close contact with the UN on the issue.
The US Army on Tuesday neutralized two anti-ship missiles from Yemen’s Houthi rebels that posed an imminent threat to ships in the area.
The United States and Britain carried out two joint operations to weaken the Houthis’ ability to attack shipping.
Washington also carried out airstrikes of its own against the missiles of insurgents supported by the Iranian regime.
The most recent attacks – carried out at dawn on Wednesday local time – targeted “two Houthi missiles that were ready to be fired towards the southern Red Sea,” according to the statement from the US Central Command (Centcom).
The Houthis began attacks on Red Sea shipping in November, claiming that they were ships related to Israel in a gesture of support for Palestinian terrorists in Gaza, plagued by the conflict between the Hamas terrorist group and Israel.
Since then, Yemeni rebels have proclaimed that the interests of the United States and Britain are also legitimate targets.
With information from Reuters