UN envoy warns Yemen must not be dragged into wider regional war

UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg issued a stark warning Thursday that the country risks being pulled back into a broader regional confrontation, calling on all Yemeni actors to prioritize the welfare of their people over external alignments. Addressing the Security Council, he emphasized that no single faction has the right to unilaterally drag the nation into escalating Middle East hostilities.

Fragile progress, permanent peril

Grundberg acknowledged modest improvements in government-controlled areas, including partial electricity restoration and salary payments. However, he cautioned that continued security incidents, protests and deadly clashes underscore the volatility of the current calm. "Without a wider negotiated political settlement to the conflict, gains will continue to remain vulnerable to reversal," he warned. He insisted that treating political, economic and security issues in isolation produces only temporary and unsustainable results.

UN staff detained, colleague's death unresolved

Marking one year since a World Food Programme employee died in Houthi custody, Grundberg revealed that 73 UN personnel and former staff remain arbitrarily detained, alongside civil society members and diplomatic mission workers. "There has been no investigation or answers on the circumstances of his death," he said of his deceased colleague. The envoy demanded that Ansar Allah unconditionally and immediately release all detained personnel and rescind all related court referrals.

Humanitarian catastrophe deepens

Lisa Doughten of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs painted a grim picture of Yemen's worsening crisis. Half the population—22.3 million people—will require humanitarian assistance in 2026, an increase of nearly 3 million from last year. The country faces the region's most severe hunger crisis, with 18 million people experiencing acute food insecurity and 5.5 million at emergency levels. More than 2.2 million children under five are acutely malnourished, including 570,000 suffering from severe acute malnutrition. An additional 1.3 million pregnant and breastfeeding women face serious malnutrition risks this year.

Impossible choices, insufficient funding

Despite extreme operational challenges, humanitarian partners reached over 5 million people with food assistance and treated more than 330,000 severely malnourished children in 2025. Yet the humanitarian appeal was funded at only 28.5 percent, forcing aid agencies to make impossible choices amid soaring needs and dwindling resources.