CAIRO (AP) – Yemeni police arrested two suspects in the killing of a top World Food Organization official on Saturday, officials said.
10 people have been arrested for the murder of Moyad Hamedi, who recently entered the country to be appointed as the head of the World Food Program in the southwestern province of Taiz.
Taiz police did not release further information.
On Friday, two gunmen on a motorcycle shot Hamedi in the city of Turba. He died shortly after arriving at the hospital. The assailants fled the scene.
Hamedi, a Jordanian, is the latest aid worker to be killed in Yemen, which has been in a civil war since 2014. The WFP office in the province arrived in Taiz a few days ago to carry out its duties.
“The death of our colleague is a great tragedy for our organization and the humanitarian community,” said Richard Ragan, WFP Yemen director. Any loss of life in humanitarian service is an unacceptable tragedy.
It has been embroiled in civil war since 2014, when Iran-backed Houthi rebels overran much of the north and seized the capital, Sanaa, forcing the internationally recognized government into exile.
A Saudi-led coalition entered the war the following year on the government’s side, and for years the conflict has turned into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, its main foreign backer.
Yemen’s conflict has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, killing more than 150,000 people, including fighters and civilians.
Taiz, Yemen’s third largest city and the provincial capital, has been under siege by the Houthis since 2016 and is part of the country’s worst conflict. The blockade severely restricted freedom of movement and blocked the flow of essential goods, medicine and humanitarian aid to the city’s residents.
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