NEW YORK CITY: The UN demanded on Friday that the Houthis return the body of Mohammed El-Shami, a Yemeni employee of its human rights office who died while detained by the militia.

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric urged the Houthis to hand the body over to El-Shami’s family “without any further delay, enabling a dignified burial,” and added that nothing could justify withholding his remains from them.

“What reason could there be?” he said when asked why the Houthis would refuse to release the body. “There’s no reason for them to continue to detain 70 of our colleagues, and I cannot think of a reason why anyone would still hang on to the body of someone who’s deceased.”

The UN also repeated its prior calls for a prompt, independent, impartial and effective investigation into the circumstances of El-Shami’s death, and for the release of all UN staff and affiliated personnel still held by the group.

El-Shami had been detained by the Houthi authorities since June 6, 2024. When the UN announced his death on Oct. 31, it said he had died more than a month earlier but his family had only recently been informed.

He was the second member of UN staff to die in Houthi detention; a colleague from the World Food Programme died in February 2025. The Houthis accuse the UN staff they have detained of spying, an allegation the UN rejects.

The UN has not been able to establish the precise date on which El-Shami died or the cause of death. A report by news channel Al Arabiya cited a Yemeni government minister as saying the UN employee had been tortured to death in a Houthi prison.

Meanwhile, the civil war between the Houthis and the internationally recognized government continues to drive more people from their homes across several parts of western and northwestern Yemen, Dujarric said, with more than 313,000 displaced since renewed fighting began to intensify at the start of August.

“Civilians, as one would expect, are sadly continuing to pay the price,” Dujarric said. He once again called on all parties involved in the conflict to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, respect international humanitarian law and allow “safe, sustained and unimpeded” humanitarian access.

The latest wave of displacements follows a Houthi offensive that began in early August, after a fragile truce that had been in place since 2022 broke down, when the group launched missile, drone and ground attacks against government forces in several governorates, including Marib, Taiz, Hodeidah and Al-Dhale.

Local authorities in Taiz have warned that a Houthi blockade has caused severe shortages of fuel and medicine that threaten premature babies and other newborns in the besieged provincial capital.