AL-MUKALLA: Two foreign workers with the international charity Doctors Without Borders are believed to have been kidnapped by armed men in Yemen’s central Marib province.
The charity, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres, said on Monday that the two foreign employees were reported missing, while local security authorities confirmed that two workers had been abducted by armed men.
Doctors Without Borders told Arab News that it had lost contact with the two workers — one from Germany and the other from Myanmar — but declined to provide additional information out of concern for their safety.
Armed men kidnapped a German and a Mexican employee of the same organization as they traveled from the city of Seiyun in the province of Hadramout to the city of Marib in March last year.
On Aug. 11, operatives linked to Al-Qaeda released five UN staffers held captive for more than a year.
The workers and their Yemeni security guards were kidnapped while returning to Aden in the southern province of Abyan.
Also in Marib, dozens of people were forced to flee when a blaze caused extensive damage to a displacement camp on Sunday, the latest in a series of fires that have devastated similar sites this year.
The Marib office of the government’s Executive Unit for IDP Camps said in a statement that 44 families at the Al-Jufena displaced persons’ camp lost shelter, food, clothing and other belongings in the fire.
It urged local and international aid organizations in Yemen to provide urgent humanitarian assistance.
Images on social media showed large plumes of smoke spreading across the tarpaulin-dominated shelters as firefighters fought to extinguish the blaze.
More than 2 million Yemenis who fled their home provinces due to fighting or Houthi repression are now living in Marib.
Since the beginning of the year, six people have been killed, 21 injured and more than 200 shelters destroyed by fire.
Officials have repeatedly demanded the construction of permanent, fire-resistant housing for the displaced population.
Due to a lack of funding from international donors, the UN World Food Programme recently reduced life-saving food and other humanitarian assistance to thousands of displaced people, worsening their situation.
Local health authorities in Marib said last week that they had recorded 14,961 cases of malnutrition this year, including 2,600 cases of acute and severe malnutrition, and 7,115 cases of moderately acute malnutrition among children under the age of 5.
The International Organization for Migration said on Monday that during the first half of this year, Marib received 1,455 families — the highest number of displaced people — followed by Taiz with 572 families and Hodeidah with 416 families.
It blamed violence, economic factors and natural disasters for displacement of Yemenis.
