Houthis increase the looting of Yemen's resources

Information Minister Muammar al-Eryani accused the Houthi militia of exploiting the truce to double the looting of resources and increase levies.

In an official statement, Al-Eryani said the Iranian-backed terrorist Houthi militia has continued to plunder hundreds of billions of state revenues, without assuming any obligations, and stopped the payment of salaries to public sector employees in the areas under its control, ignoring the difficult economic conditions of citizens and the worsening humanitarian crisis.

The Yemeni minister stated that the total revenues looted by the Houthi militia from taxes, customs, zakat, endowments, fuel, and domestic gas amounted in 2020 to 2.3 trillion riyals.

Al-Eryani accused the Houthi militia of “taking advantage of the UN-sponsored truce in early 2022 to escalate the systematic looting of public revenues, tax and customs revenues for oil derivatives through the port of Hodeidah and trafficking in smuggled Iranian oil in local markets…”

He called on the international community, the United Nations, and US envoys to “exercise real pressure on the Houthi militia, to stop its systematic looting of state revenues, and to allocate it to the regular payment of employee salaries, according to the 2014 civil service database, instead of directing it in favor of the wealth of its leaders…”

The Houthi militia has stopped paying the salaries of government employees in the areas under its controls since late 2016, despite collecting hundreds of billions of riyals from the revenues of institutions.