Top UN officials urged the United States to reverse its plan to label Yemen’s Houthis a foreign terrorist organization, warning the designation “will be a death sentence to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of innocent people.”
“We fear that there will be inevitably a chilling effect on my efforts to bring the parties together,” UN special envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths told the Security Council on Thursday. “The decision will contribute to the prospect of famine in Yemen and should be revoked based on humanitarian grounds at the earliest opportunity.”