Eight years of Houthi violations of childhood

English - Wednesday 08 June 2022 الساعة 10:23 am
Sana'a, NewsYemen, Muhammad Yahya:

In this month last year, the girl, Lian, was burned and charred in her father’s arms, when a ballistic missile fired by the terrorist Houthi militia, Iran’s arm in Yemen, targeted her at a gas station in the city of Marib on the morning of June 5, 2021.

During the eight years of its war against the Yemenis, the Iranian-backed militia assassinated the childhood of thousands of young children, whether by direct targeting, or by the mines planted by this criminal militia, or by recruitment and making them fuel for its wars, as an entire generation faced various kinds of violations.

Children in areas under the control of the Houthi militia are subjected to multiple violations, primarily killing, forced recruitment, kidnapping, deprivation of education and health, in addition to arbitrary arrest and threats, in a serious violation of the immunity and special protection established by international law for the child.

After the Houthis signed with the UN delegate an agreement to end the recruitment or use of children in armed conflicts, and to release child soldiers, after the victims exceeded thousands of dead and the same number of wounded, the terrorist group recently returned to announce a new season to recruit children and mobilize for their summer centers, where the militia takes advantage of the summer vacation as a season for attracting and recruiting tens of thousands of school children and enrolling them in their centers, through which children’s brains are washed and filled with sectarian ideas, and they are prepared to be sent to the incinerators and death fronts.

From an early age, the Houthi group began to exploit the recruitment of children, at the beginning of 2012, in the war it waged against the tribes of Hajour al-Sham in Hajjah Governorate, and then its war on Dammaj area in Saada governorate during the year 2013, and then increased at a greater pace in 2014, after its coup against power  The battles expanded on a number of fronts, as they recruited children in order to compensate for their human losses.

Human rights reports accused the Houthi militia of recruiting more than 20,000 children and involving them in the armed conflict, and kidnapped 797 children out of 888 incidents of child abduction, while the internationally recognized government accused the militia of recruiting 40,000 children since its coup on September 21, 2014 until this year.

The Geneva-based SAM Organization for Rights and Freedoms has documented the killing of more than 5,700 children, the largest number of whom fell in the city of Taiz with 1,100 children who were killed by Houthi snipers and mines, while 8,310 children were injured in the war triggered by the coup militia.