TEHRAN, June 08 - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday it had pulled 71 international staff out of Yemen because of security incidents and threats, moving them to Djibouti.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - The aid agency called on all the warring sides in Yemen's three-year conflict to provide security guarantees so it can keep running its surgical, water and food assistance programs, which it said had been crippled by the partial evacuation.
Some 450 ICRC employees remain in Yemen, including dozens of expatriate staff, spokeswoman Marie-Claire Feghali said.
"Our current activities have been blocked, threatened and directly targeted in recent weeks, and we see a vigorous attempt to instrumentalize our organization as a pawn in the conflict," the ICRC said in a statement.
An ICRC employee, a Lebanese national, was killed on April 21 by an unknown gunmen who opened fire on his car in the southwestern Yemeni city of Taiz as he was on his way to visit a prison, it said at the time.
"While the Yemen delegation has received numerous threats in the past, we cannot now accept additional risk less than two months after a gunman killed a staff member. The security of our staff, who are being intimidated by parties to the conflict, is a non-negotiable prerequisite for our presence and work in Yemen and an absolute priority," the statement said.
The United Nations said there were no plans to evacuate staff. "We can confirm that UN international and national staff remain in place in Yemen, including in all five active field hubs (Aden, Hodeidah, Ibb, Sa’ada and Sana’a)," said Jens Laerke of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Source: Reuters
Your Comment