Yemen’s Ansarullah officials have ordered US and British nationals working for the United Nations and humanitarian organizations in the capital Sana’a to leave the country within a month.
Yemen’s Foreign Ministry gave the order in a letter to Peter Hawkins, the UN’s acting humanitarian coordinator in Yemen on Wednesday, after US and UK carried out a new round of military strikes across the country in response to attacks by Yemeni armed forces on Israeli-linked vessels in the Red Sea.
“The ministry … would like to stress that you must inform officials and workers with US and British citizenships to prepare to leave the country within 30 days,” the letter said.
The letter also instructed foreign organizations to not hire American and British citizens for Yemen’s operations.
Mohammed Abdulsalam, the Ansarullah spokesman, confirmed the letter’s authenticity to Reuters.
In a statement, the US embassy said it was aware of reports about the letter but “cannot speak on behalf of the UN or humanitarian organizations in Yemen” as to what they may have received from Ansarullah authorities.
The British embassy also noted that its staff had not yet been told to leave and the mission was in close contact with the UN on the issue.
On Monday, US and British forces launched strikes at eight different locations in Yemen, with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands, according to a joint statement signed by the six countries.
The strikes came as the Yemeni armed forces have been staging many such strikes against Israeli vessels or those bound for the occupied Palestinian territories’ ports over the past month.
The operations have been described as a response to the Israeli regime’s war on the besieged Gaza Strip.
So far, eight rounds of strikes over the past month have failed to stop attacks by Yemeni armed forces against shipping linked to the Israeli regime.
The Israeli regime waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s atrocities against Palestinians.
Since the start of the aggression, Israel has killed more than 25,700 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
The Israeli regime has also imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
