Houthis Are Holding 37 UN Food Workers, Says the New Trump-Backed Head of the World Food Programme
Luke Lindberg, the South Dakota native who succeeded Cindy McCain, told Fox News Digital that all 37 detainees are Yemeni staff, many held nearly two years. He named Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia as famine flash points.
The new head of the UN's food agency opened his tenure with an appeal for captured colleagues, Fox News reports.
The detainees. Luke J. Lindberg, the World Food Programme's new executive director, told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen are holding 37 WFP workers. Many have been held for about two years. All are Yemeni nationals employed locally, he said, and no Americans are among them. "They're not there to influence the political outcomes of a conflict," Lindberg said. Three days into the job he raised the detentions with U.S. Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz, who he says is aware and treating it as a priority.
The scale. Lindberg said conflict drives roughly two-thirds of acute food insecurity worldwide and that an estimated 266 million people face severe hunger. In Yemen, Fox says more than 18 million people face acute food insecurity. He said famine levels are near in Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia, and that Sudan will be his first field destination. Fox also lists Gaza, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ukraine's disrupted farm output as pressure points. Lindberg said more than 700 humanitarians have been killed on duty in recent years and called it "unacceptable."
The appointment. Lindberg is a South Dakota native and a former Agriculture Department undersecretary for trade and foreign agricultural affairs. He succeeds Cindy McCain, who stepped down this year, with Carl Skau serving as interim. Fox says six executive directors since 1992 have been American. Lindberg said President Trump personally called to ask him to be the U.S. nominee, which he said shows the president's "heart for this work." UN Secretary-General António Guterres and FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu made the appointment.
The mission. "Show up no matter what," Lindberg said, while staying "out of the politics of it."
Note for readers: the detention figure and the conditions come from Lindberg's interview. We have not seen WFP records, and Fox does not report a Houthi response.