High-Profile Member Of World Food Program Killed In Yemen’s Taiz

ISWNews Analysis Group: On Friday (July 21), some unidentified gunmen assassinated Moayad Hamidi, Head of the World Food Programme office (affiliated to the United Nations), in Al-Turba town located in the southern governorate of Taiz.

The Jordanian UN employee was transferred to a hospital after the attack, but Yemeni doctors’ efforts to save his life were unsuccessful and he died there.

Mohammad Abdulsalam, spokesman for the Ansar Allah movement and head of negotiations for the Yemeni Salvation Government, condemned the assassination attack and considered it as an attempt to create chaos in occupied areas of Yemen and a conspiracy aimed at diverting people’s attention from Yemen’s fate, sovereignty and independence.

Despite the statement, media outlets affiliated to the resigned government of Yemen accused the Ansar Allah movement of carrying out the assassination of the UN employee.

Also, the Al-Islah Party issued a statement, saying that one of Tareq Saleh’s forces named Ahmad Youssef Al-Sarh, who had a background of cooperating with the Abu Al-Abbas Brigades, is the perpetrator of Hamidi’s assassination.

It should be mentioned that the north of Taiz Governorate is under the control of the Ansar Allah movement, while the center and other parts of the governorate are under the control of Tareq Saleh’s forces and militants of the Al-Islah Party.

The tension between Tareq Saleh (a Yemeni military commander and the nephew of the late President Ali Abdullah Saleh) and the Al-Islah Party (the Yemeni Congregation for Reform) led to many livelihood crises in Taiz city and affected UN aid to residents of the Yemeni city.