Today, Sunday, the Houthi group, through Omani mediation, released 14 foreigners detained in it, while the UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg expressed his concern about the postponement of the first commercial flight that was scheduled today from Sanaa airport.

The Omani Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that in response to the request of the governments of Britain, Indonesia, India and the Philippines to assist in the release of a number of their nationals in Yemen, the Sultanate of Oman has coordinated with the relevant authorities in Sana'a, which responded to these endeavors.

The ministry added that the released are a Briton, his wife and child, and 7 Indians, a Filipino, an Indonesian, an Ethiopian and a Myanmarese, without providing details about the reason for their detention.

The Omani Foreign Ministry indicated that the released detainees were transferred from Sanaa Airport to Muscat today, on board an Omani Air Force plane, in preparation for their return to their countries.

In turn, the British government said that its citizen, Luke Simmons, had been detained without charge or trial since 2017.

"Locke was 25 years old when the Houthis detained him without legal basis, and his son was only a few months old at the time," Secretary of State Liz Truss said in a statement.

The Houthi rebels arrested Simmons, 30, in southwest Yemen, along with his Yemeni wife, on suspicion of espionage, which his family vehemently denied.

The family said that he broke his arm during one of the interrogation sessions to extract a confession from him, and that his physical and psychological health deteriorated while he was held in a solitary cell in Sana'a.

Disable the first flight

In a related context, Yemen Airways announced on Sunday the postponement of the first commercial flight in 6 years from the Houthi-controlled capital, Sanaa, due to the failure to obtain "operating permits" from the Saudi-led military coalition.

While the government accused the Houthis of trying to smuggle Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah operatives and forcing the use of passports issued by them, the Houthis said that not granting the license was a "violation" of the ongoing armistice in Yemen.

On Sunday morning, the capital's airport was scheduled to receive its first commercial plane since 2016, raising hopes that the current truce in Yemen would lead to lasting peace in the war-torn country.

The plane, operated by Yemenia, was supposed to transport passengers over the age of forty who need medical treatment, from Sanaa to the Jordanian capital, Amman, as part of the truce that entered into force in early April for a period of two months.

But hours before the flight, the airline said on its Facebook page that it "regrets the delay in the arrival of permits to operate its flight from Sana'a International Airport," adding that it had not received "until this moment the operating permits."

The UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, expressed his concern about the postponement of the first commercial flight that was scheduled today from Sanaa airport, and urged all parties to cooperate constructively with him to find a solution that would allow the resumption of flights as planned.

The United Nations said in a tweet via Twitter that hunger is expected to worsen in Yemen in the second half of this year, if the necessary funding for humanitarian relief projects is not obtained.

The organization indicated that hunger among Yemenis has reached alarming levels, and that more than 19 million people are in dire need of food assistance.

About 80% of Yemen's 30 million people depend on aid to survive.

For more than 7 years, Yemen has been witnessing a continuous war between forces loyal to the legitimate government backed by an Arab military coalition led by the neighboring Saudi Arabia, and the Iran-backed Houthis, who have controlled governorates, including the capital, Sanaa, since September 2014.

The war in Yemen since 2014 has killed more than 377,000 people directly or indirectly, according to the United Nations, and the country is witnessing the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, with millions of its residents standing on the brink of starvation, while thousands need urgent medical treatment that is not available. In a country whose infrastructure has been destroyed.