The non-governmental organization Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans frontières, MSF) informed AFP on Monday that it had “lost contact” with two of its workers in Yemen, a country where armed conflict has been raging for the past nine years.

The two NGO workers, nationals of Germany and Myanmar respectively, were in Marib province, the last stronghold of the internationally recognized government in northern Yemen, he added, without elaborating, “for their safety”.

A Yemeni official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the German Agency that unknown gunmen kidnapped the two workers.

The Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country remains mired in a war since 2014 between the government, backed by an international military alliance led by Saudi Arabia, and the Iran-aligned Shiite Houthi rebels.

Although a UN-negotiated cease-fire in April 2022 was not renewed when it expired six months later, it continues to be generally observed, giving breathing space to the population of 30 million, much of which depends on humanitarian aid to survive.

International and aid organizations are often targeted by armed groups that have taken advantage of the chaos to spread, especially Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

This jihadist organization, which the US describes as the most active of the entire al-Qaeda network, released five people working for the United Nations in early August; it had held them hostage for a year and a half.

A month earlier, a worker of the World Food Program (WFP) of the United Nations was killed in an attack in Taiz province (south).

In March 2022, two MSF workers were kidnapped in the south-eastern part of Yemen. They were released a few months later.

The war in Yemen has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, displaced millions more and left the population facing one of the worst humanitarian crises on the planet.