R. M. A., a 13-year-old Yemeni boy, was not aware that his Houthi-run neighborhood was no longer a safe place for a minor his age. On September 1, Houthi militiamen specialized in kidnapping and recruiting children had nabbed him off the streets of Yirim city, north of Ibb governorate.
According to family members of the minor who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat under the conditions of anonymity, R.M.A had left his house in Yirim seeking public transportation to reach his father’s village but was abducted by gunmen before he even made it to his ride.
The Houthi gunmen had blindfolded the boy and threatened to kill him if he yells or screams at military and police checkpoints. He then was thrown onto a bus heading towards Sanaa.
A few kilometers into his journey, the kidnapped boy mustered the courage to yell for help when he felt the bus stop at a checkpoint where police under Houthi control where at the checkpoint. They answered the boy’s call for help and released him after hearing his story.
The culprits, however, were also freed after having successfully identified themselves as Houthi militants.
Two other accounts of child abductions were simultaneously recorded in Sanaa.
The incidents invoked the horrid memories of repeated waves of child kidnap that swept Yemeni cities and villages over the last years.
Human rights activists accuse Houthis of abducting children and driving them to secret hideouts where the minors are indoctrinated and trained to use weapons, before they are ultimately used as cannon fodder.
An anti-Houthi security officer based in Sanaa, speaking under the conditions of anonymity, told Asharq Al-Awsat that Iran-backed Houthis have established a specialized taskforce focused on hunting down eligible minors for recruitment purposes.
The officer revealed that each militant receives a $500 payment in cash for every teenager they bring in to Houthi boot camps.
The Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedoms published a report covering the period from January 1, 2015 to August 30, 2019, in which it documented over 65,000 accounts of violation of children’s rights across 17 Yemeni governorates.
