A UN food agency staff member has been killed in an attack in Taez province in southern Yemen, the health minister of the internationally recognised government said Friday.
Health minister Qasem Buhaibeh tweeted his condolences to the staffer’s family, calling for security forces to “arrest the criminals” responsible for the killing.
He had previously identified the staffer before later removing his name and nationality.
Fighting between a Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen’s internationally recognised government and the Iran-backed Huthi rebels has eased over the past year, although sporadic attacks continue.
Yemen’s conflict broke out in 2014 when the Huthis seized the capital Sanaa, prompting the Saudi-led coalition to intervene the following year.
In April, a Saudi delegation led by Mohammed al-Jaber, the kingdom’s ambassador to Yemen, travelled to Sanaa for direct talks with the Huthis, fuelling hopes for a negotiated settlement.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed directly and indirectly in more than eight years of fighting, resulting in one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The war has displaced 4.5 million Yemenis internally and pushed more than two-thirds of the population into poverty.
