Yemen's Houthis launch land-looting campaign

The Iran-backed Houthis have abducted more than 100 villagers in Yemen’s western province of Hodeidah and killed a civilian who resisted their attempt to seize their land and farms, local government officials and human rights activists said on Wednesday.

Houthi figures from Saada led an assault on a cluster of villages, Al-Qusira, east of Hodeidah’s Bayt Al-Faqih district with more than 30 armored vehicles to arrest dozens of villagers, including women and children, who refused to surrender their land.

One man was killed, and eight others were injured as villagers fought the Houthis with bare hands to protect their land and families. The new plot is part of the Houthi scheme to change the demography of Sunni areas in particular, as they did in Sanaa.

The confiscation of land by the Houthis in Hodeidah has sparked outrage in Yemen, with calls for international mediators to condemn the robbery, put pressure on the militia to release the abducted individuals, and order them to allow residents to use their farms and land.

Muammar Al-Eryani, Yemen’s information minister, described the Houthi attacks in Hodeidah as a land-looting campaign aimed at displacing residents and transferring land ownership to their leaders and supporters under the guise of using it for military purposes. Esam Sharem, a Hodeidah-born member of Yemen’s Shoura Council, urged the UN and its envoy, as well as international rights groups, to act against the Houthis.