Underage victims of Yemen war

The Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen have intensified the recruitment of children through summer camps and courses in recent years to boost their manpower. 

Child soldiers have been killed on battlefields outside the city of Marib as the Houthis pushed to seize control of the strategic city.

According to UN, nearly 1,500 children recruited by Yemen's Houthi rebels died in fighting in 2020, and hundreds more the following year. Families who refused to send their children to Houthi summer camps or battlefields were punished.

In a report to the Security Council, experts said rebels were still recruiting children, using summer camps and a mosque to spread their ideology.

The report stated that the Houthis use complex patterns to forcibly recruit children and put them in hostile areas under its control in Yemen.

“The panel received a list of 1,406 children recruited by the Houthis who died on the battlefield in 2020. The panel also received a list of 562 children recruited by the Houthis who died on the battlefield between January and May 2021,” the experts said in the 303-page report.

Yemeni human rights activists, who have long campaigned against Houthi recruitment of children, say that they are not surprised by the UN report’s findings and the number of children’s deaths on the battlefield is much higher than 2,000.

The experts also said they documented cases of Houthis sexually assaulting women who refused to join their indoctrination camps.

The rebels also deprived other people of humanitarian assistance for refusing to fight, and raped some young participants. According to the experts, many Yemenis join the recruitment events out of fear of Houthi punishment or losing financial benefits.