Raids and kidnappings... the people of Hajour are in the crosshairs of Houthi terrorism

The Houthi militia, Iran's arm in Yemen, has escalated its campaign of raids and kidnappings against the people of Hajour villages in Hajjah Governorate, northwest of Yemen.

According to human rights sources, the Houthi militia has been carrying out, for days, a military retaliatory campaign against the people of Hajour, specifically in the villages of Al-Darb in the Bani Saeed isolation in the Kushar District, one of the areas affiliated with the Hajour tribes, which declared a tribal uprising in 2019 that shook the Houthi authority.

The human rights sources indicated that military crews accompanied by dozens of armed men armed with machine guns raided citizens' homes under heavy gunfire, terrorizing women and children. They pointed out that the campaign kidnapped during the past two days about 20 young men and men from the village of Al-Darb and threw them in prisons.

It said that the Houthi leader, Akram Al-Jarb, is leading the retaliatory campaign against the people of the Hajour tribes, following information obtained by the militias that a number of citizens returned to the region after visiting their relatives in the city of Marib, which is under the control of the Yemeni government.

According to human rights sources, the Houthi militias fabricated malicious charges against the kidnappers, including spying for the national army, the legitimate government, and the coalition.

In 2019, the Hajour tribes in the Kushar District led the largest tribal and popular uprising against the Houthi militias, and it continued for several months before the militias invaded the tribal villages after using heavy weapons, including rocket launchers and tanks, in order to subjugate the tribes who represented a stumbling block to the expansion of its project in Hajjah. 

Since then, the Houthi militias have been stalking the people of the Hajour tribes, and carrying out the most heinous revenge crimes against them, amidst siege and starvation, with the aim of forcibly displacing the people.

The human rights sources indicated that the kidnapped persons were transferred to secret prisons, while their families were prevented from checking on their health or knowing their places of detention, explaining that the militias are still hiding about 50 prisoners from Hajour’s sons inside secret prisons since their kidnapping in January 2019, and it is not known whether They were alive or eliminated.

For its part, the "Irada" organization against torture and enforced disappearance denounced the new violations committed by the Houthi militias against the people of the villages of Hajour in Hajjah, noting that these actions against defenseless civilians are considered a horrific terrorist act that must be stood against and its perpetrators exposed.

The organization said that the Houthi militias practice blatant racism towards the people of Hajour, under the pretext of carrying out their arbitrary actions against civilians, calling on international organizations that raise the slogan of human rights to move quickly to stop these rabid campaigns against civilians and to pressure the militias to quickly release those who were kidnapped without Restriction or condition.

المصدر: نيوزيمن