The Human Rights Watch (HRW) group announced Iran-backed Houthis have recruited “thousands of people” since the October 7 massacre against Israel. Tragically the watchdog group believes that “the vast majority of recruits” are between the ages of 13 and 25, “including at least hundreds or thousands who are younger than 18” i24News reports.
“The Houthis are exploiting the Palestinian cause to recruit more children for their domestic fight in Yemen,” said Niku Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at HRW. “The United Nations has verified at least 1,851 individual cases of child recruitment or use by the Houthis since 2010”, added the report.
Recruitment of children under 15 constitutes a war crime. The report cited one woman who leads a human rights-focused nongovernmental organization saying: “The Houthis make children believe that they will fight to liberate Palestine, but they end up sending them to [the front lines in] Marib and Taizz. Indeed, the Houthis’ Gaza is Marib [a Yemeni city with oil resources Houthis have repeatedly attacked].”
“The Houthis should be investing resources into providing the basic needs of children in their territories like good education, food, and water, rather than replacing their childhood with conflict.”
i24News reports that earlier in the week the Houthis attacked a cargo ship in the Red Sea that was bringing corn from Brazil to Iran, according to a report by Reuters. On the same day, a Marshall Islands-flagged, Greece-owned ship came under missile attackoff the coast of Yemen, the UK maritime agency (UKMTO) stated.
