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A Yemeni human rights group condemned the Houthi militia for torturing more than 17,000 detainees since the militia took control of Sanaa in September 2014.
In honor of the International Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearance, held in Vienna in August 2022, the Yemeni Organization for Detainees and Abductees (YODA) reported that 178 people, including 10 children, have been tortured to death.
Forty came from Hodeidah governorate, 37 from Sanaa, 20 from Taiz and the remainder from other Yemeni governorates.
According to YODA, the Houthi militia runs 639 detention centers: 230 of them official, 298 unofficial, and 111 specially created in the basements of government buildings in Sanaa.
The organization called on the United Nations Human Rights Council and the international community to pressure the Houthis to release all detainees, cease violating basic human rights and annul death sentences against journalists detained in prisons for years.
“Enforced disappearance and other violations faced by civilians, including academics, journalists, human rights defenders or perceived opposition are intended to silence criticism of the authorities and to strengthen their grip on power through the spread of fear,” Yemeni human rights lawyer Abdul Majeed Sabra said.
The Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, proclaimed by the U.N. General Assembly in December 1992, defines enforced disappearance as: “persons are arrested, detained or abducted against their will or otherwise deprived of their liberty by officials of different branches or levels of Government, or by organized groups or private individuals acting on behalf of, or with the support, direct or indirect, consent or acquiescence of the Government, followed by a refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the persons concerned or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their liberty, which places such persons outside the protection of the law.”
Houthi human rights abuses — which include withholding food aid to malnourished Yemenis and planting land mines among civilians — have contributed to what has become the world’s worst human-made humanitarian crisis.
Sources: alarabiya.net, the U.N., reliefweb.int/report/