Six United Nations personnel who’ve been held on “spurious” accusations in Yemen for three months by the Houthi de facto authorities must be released immediately, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on Tuesday.

Issuing the appeal in Geneva on his behalf, Chief Spokesperson for his Office OHCHR, Ravina Shamdasani, “unequivocally” rejected the “false allegations” for which one staff member appeared to have been made to confess under duress.

“These are completely made-up allegations,” she told journalists, highlighting “a video of our staff member that was put on social media as well which was clearly a forced confession. Our colleague looked very distressed in that video.”

Total of 17 detained

The six UN human rights staff – one woman and five men – were arrested on 6 June together with seven other UN personnel.

Two UN human rights staffers and two colleagues from other UN agencies have been detained and held “incommunicado” by the de facto authorities since 2021 and 2023 respectively, bringing the number of UN staff arbitrarily detained in Yemen to 17.

“Their whereabouts remain unknown and the Houthi de facto authorities have not permitted physical access to any of them, despite our repeated requests,” Ms. Shamdasani said.

“There needs to be due process, legal representation (and) evidence needs to be presented” in cases where staff are alleged to have broken laws, insisted the Chief Spokesperson.

“None of this has been done. These are clearly made-up, fabricated accusations and we reject them unequivocally…These are spurious.”

Ms. Shamdasani also reiterated the High Commissioner’s appeal to the Houthis – who after a decade fighting internationally recognised Government forces are in control of much of Yemen, including the capital Sana’a - “to facilitate rather than hinder UN entities and other human rights and humanitarian actors in their efforts to serve the people of Yemen, including for the promotion and protection of their human rights”.