Yemeni children in Houthi Summer Camps

Fear and coercion drive hundreds of thousands of children annually to the Houthi camps, where they are exposed to extremist propaganda and military recruitment

Ideologically extreme summer camps in Sana’a and other governorates in Yemen under Houthi control host at least hundreds of thousands of children annually. While the exact number of attendees is disputed, Houthi sources speak about 430,000 children under the age of 14 and more than 1 million under the age of 18 this year alone.

The Houthis use these camps to measure and enhance their approval among the next generation of Yemenis. These camps also provide an opportunity for the Houthis to recruit children into their ranks.

Analysts believe that the repercussions of those camps will appear later in a way that will make it difficult to address. The activities in the centers included visits to military facilities, as well as listening to political and military speeches by military leaders, which constitutes a disaster for childhood.

The Houthis use the summer camps to measure people’s loyalty and acceptance of them and their actions. Parents who refuse to enroll their children are accused of being disloyal to the Houthis in the best-case scenario. 

In the worst-case scenario, those who refuse to enroll their children are accused of being loyal to or a mercenary of “the aggression countries,” a reference to countries that participated in the Saudi-led coalition at the onset of the Saudi intervention in Yemen.

The latter accusation could result in harassment and deprivation of basic rights, such as purchasing cooking gas at a government rate. Another form of harassment is being deprived of humanitarian aid. 

Although such aid comes from nongovernmental organizations, the Houthis have veto power to decide who gets the aid and who doesn’t. These actions are implemented in all Houthi-controlled areas, which include the governorates of Sana’a, Dhamar, Amran, and Sa’ada, among other areas.

The Houthis operate the camps every summer; the first were organized in 2017. The number of participants has increased every year since then. According to unofficial numbers from the Houthi-run Supreme Committee for Summer Camps, between 2017 and 2024, as many as 9 million children may have participated in the camps.

Moamar Al-Eryani, information minister for Yemen’s internationally recognized government (IRG), disputed this figure. Al-Eryani told The Media Line that around 300,000 of Yemen’s 6 million schoolchildren participate in the Houthi camps, and that tens of thousands of them have been recruited from these camps for military service.