CAIRO: Yemeni police on Saturday arrested two suspects in the killing of a senior World Food Program official the previous day, authorities said.
Ten others were also detained for their alleged involvement in the killing of Moayad Hameidi, who had recently arrived in the country to take the post of the head of the WFP in the southwestern province of Taiz.
Taiz police did not provide further details.
On Friday, two gunmen riding on a motorbike shot Hameidi in the town of Turbah. He died shortly after reaching a hospital. The attackers fled the scene.
Hameidi, a Jordanian, was the latest aid worker to be killed in Yemen, which has been embroiled in a civil war since 2014. He had just arrived in Taiz a few days ago to assume his role as head of the WFP office in the province.
“The loss of our colleague is a profound tragedy for our organization and the humanitarian community,” said Richard Ragan, WFP’s director in Yemen.
“Any loss of life in humanitarian service is an unacceptable tragedy.”
Yemeni prime minister Maeen Abdulmalik meanwhile conveyed the Yemeni government and people condolences ‘for the treacherous terrorist crime.’
The WPF official’s death “represented a heavy loss by all standards, not only to his family and the World Food Programme, but also to the Yemeni people in the first place, for whom he gave and worked sincerely on the humanitarian side,” in a statement released by state news agency Saba.
The prime minister was likewise hopeful that “humanitarian and relief work will not be affected by this reprehensible and brutal incident.”
Yemen has been embroiled in a civil war since 2014, when Iran-backed Houthi rebels swept across much of the north and seized the capital, Sanaa, forcing the internationally recognized government into exile.
Yemen’s conflict has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises and more than 150,000 people, including fighters and civilians, have been killed.
Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city and the provincial capital, has been under a siege by the Houthis since 2016, as part of the country’s brutal conflict. The blockade has severely restricted freedom of movement and impeded the flow of essential goods, medicine, and humanitarian aid to the city’s residents.
In May 2021, an aid worker with the Oxfam charity died and another wounded when they were caught in crossfire in the country’s south.
