AL-MUKALLA: The Iran-backed Houthis have raided homes in Abedia district, south of Marib district, abducting dozens of civilians and transporting them to undisclosed locations, a Yemeni rights group said.
The Mothers of Abductees Association, an umbrella organization for thousands of female relatives of war prisoners, documented the abduction of 47 civilians in Abedia as the Houthis broke into the houses of residents, searching for Yemeni army soldiers and tribesmen who resisted their occupation of the district.
The militia abducted and questioned relatives of the fighters, including some children, and intimidated them into revealing information about the whereabouts of their relatives.
They also abducted wounded civilians and turned public facilities such as schools into detention centers, the organization said.
“We hold the Houthi armed group fully responsible for the lives and safety of all its captives, and demand that they immediately stop all abduction operations, and release all captives,” the organization said in the statement, urging international rights groups to exercise pressure on the militia.
“We call upon the UN and its special envoy for Yemen, the Office of the High Commissioner Office for Human Rights and the international community to mount the needed pressure upon the Houthi armed group in order to release all captives and forcibly disappeared persons from Abedia.”
Last week, the Houthis seized control of most of Abedia after laying siege on more than 35,000 civilians and government troops who took up arms and fought off incursions into the district.
The Houthi siege of Abedia pushed trapped civilians into starvation as the rebels obstructed the distribution of humanitarian aid and banned people from entering or leaving the district.
The siege sparked outrage inside and outside Yemen as activists and international bodies, including the UN Security Council, demanded that the Houthis allow aid workers and humanitarian assistance to reach trapped citizens.
However, the militia ignored the appeals and intensified missile and ground attacks until they forced a breakthrough last week and managed to storm the district’s center.
Local activists believe that the Houthis have abducted and forcibly disappeared more than 100 people in Abedia, blown up houses of government officials and looted property.
“The Houthi militia has committed brutal crimes in Abedia, far from the eyes of the media and local and international human rights organizations,” Mohammed Al-Salehi, editor of news website Marib Press, told Arab News on Monday.
In Sanaa, meanwhile, local and international rights groups and government officials said that the Houthis have expelled the families of two dozen dead academics at Sanaa University from their homes.
Ordered by the Houthi-allied president of Sanaa University Al-Qassem Abbas, armed militia members on Sunday stormed the houses of the families in Sanaa and asked them to leave voluntarily, threatening eviction by force.
In the past, the Houthis asked families of dead and pensioned professors to leave homes and flats given to them by Sanaa University as the movement sought to replace them with new academics.
The families said that they would be forced to sleep in the streets if they left the rent-free homes as the Houthis have not paid the salaries of their dead relatives and other public servants since late 2016.
The Geneva-based SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties warned that the Houthis prevented some families of dead professors from entering homes and looted furniture and valuables, demanding the group stop raids on the houses of Sanaa academics.
Yemeni Information Minister Muammar Al-Eryani condemned the raids and urged the international community and rights groups to pressure the Houthis into ending evictions.
“This terrorist crime is part of a series of abuses by Houthi militia against the elite of society, including academics, scholars and intellectuals, restricting them in their livelihoods and pushing them to emigrate,” he said on Twitter.
