The international human-rights chief has called for an urgent, independent investigation after officials said the family of a Yemeni staff member had informed them that he died while held in Houthi custody. No cause of death has been provided, and the circumstances remain unestablished.
The announcement, made from Geneva on 31 October, concerned Mohammad el Shami, who officials said had been detained since 6 June 2024. They said information from his family indicated that he had died more than a month before his relatives were told. An exact date of death has not been established.
Officials said the family had received no explanation of either the cause or the circumstances of his death. That lack of information is central to the demand for an inquiry: the announcement relayed the family’s account, but did not establish how he died or what happened during his final period in custody.
Call for access to evidence
The human-rights chief demanded an independent investigation, together with access to records and evidence. The request seeks scrutiny of the death and its circumstances, rather than presenting a finding about responsibility. The information given by the family has not been independently established, and no medical explanation was provided.
The distinction between the detention timeline and the account of the death matters. Officials gave a specific date for the start of el Shami’s detention, while the information about his death was attributed to his relatives. The interval of more than a month refers to the time between the death they described and the family being informed.
There was no immediate response from the Houthi authorities to the announcement. Their lack of an immediate comment does not resolve the unanswered questions about the death, nor does it provide an explanation for the delay in informing the family. Those issues remain part of the circumstances for which the chief is seeking independent scrutiny.
The chief’s demand for access to records and evidence accompanies the call for an urgent inquiry. It is not an announcement that an investigation has been completed, and it does not establish a cause of death. The family’s lack of an explanation remains a key concern identified by officials.
Concern for other detainees
The appeal also extended beyond el Shami’s case. Officials demanded the release of other detained staff of the international organisation, as well as humanitarian and civil-society personnel. They expressed concern for those who remained detained, without announcing that any releases had taken place.
Houthi accusations of spying against detained personnel were described as unsupported and were denied by the international organisation. Those accusations should not be treated as established facts. They provide no verified explanation for el Shami’s death, whose cause and circumstances remain unknown.
The announcement therefore combined two demands: an independent examination of the death and the release of other detainees. The first concerns unanswered questions in an individual case; the second addresses the continued detention of personnel working for international, humanitarian and civil-society organisations.
For el Shami’s relatives, officials described both a delay in receiving news and the absence of an explanation. Neither an exact date nor a cause of death was established in the announcement. The human-rights chief’s call leaves those questions open, while pressing for the records, evidence and independent scrutiny needed to examine what happened.
