Aid agency worried about US move on Houthi rebels

A leading aid organisation on Monday warned that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's move to designate Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels as a foreign terrorist organisation could hinder badly needed aid operations in the impoverished and war-torn nation.

In his announcement late Sunday, Pompeo pledged that US measures would help absorb the impact on aid groups and allow humanitarian assistance to continue to flow to the Arab world's poorest country.

Yemen's Iran-backed rebels on Monday dismissed the US move.

Relief organisations have long warned that sanctions could prove catastrophic for efforts to help starving Yemeni civilians caught in the conflict between the Houthis and the Yemeni government, backed by a Saudi-led coalition which has been waging war against the rebels.

Yemen, a country on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is the stage of the world's worst humanitarian disaster after more than six years of a grinding conflict that has left the majority of the country's nearly 30 million people in need of humanitarian aid.

The war has killed more than 112,000 people so far.