Dubai (AFP) – The United States’ move to re-classify Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebel group as a foreign terrorist organisation could have “devastating” effects on the country’s largely aid-dependent, war-wracked population, humanitarian groups warned on Thursday.

The listing, which bans any interaction with the Huthis – who control large swathes of the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country – could push up prices and make it difficult to import essential goods, aid groups said.

The United States re-designated the Huthis on Tuesday. The rebels were also briefly placed on the terror list during President Donald Trump’s first term in 2021.

The Huthis have fired missiles and drones at Israel throughout the Gaza war and waged a campaign against shipping in the vital Red Sea and Gulf of Aden trade route.

More than half of Yemen’s 38 million-plus population is dependent on aid, according to the United Nations, which says the country is suffering one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

“Yemen imports around 90 percent of its food, the vast majority through commercial channels,” Eri Kaneko, spokesperson of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told AFP.

“Constrictions in this supply – whether intended or incidental – will have devastating impacts on millions of people.”

If the supply of essential food and medicine is not preserved, “it would have serious impacts on communities already on the precipice of disaster”, Kaneko said.

Yemen’s Huthi-controlled areas, home to about 70 percent of the population, are already facing rampant food insecurity, Action Against Hunger warned.

The full impact of the terror listing is not yet known, Doctors Without Borders said.

“But the sanctions will inevitably impact the work of humanitarian organisations and increase the suffering of the population,” it said in a statement sent to AFP.

Former president Joe Biden removed the Huthis from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations after humanitarian groups protested that they could not get aid to Yemen’s needy without dealing with the rebels.

Last year under Biden, they were placed on the less-severe list of Specially Designated Global Terrorist groups, which still had the effect of freezing their assets and cutting off sources of financing.