Arab News

GENEVA: The Houthi militia kidnapped 1,700 women in Yemen, mainly from the capital Sanaa, between 2015 and 2022, the Human Rights Association has claimed.

Speaking to the United Nations’ Human Rights Council on the sidelines of its 51st regular session in Geneva, the rights group accused the Iran-backed militia of torturing female inmates in Houthi prisons.

The association urged the council and international organizations to exert pressure on the militia to release the detained women and stop the violence committed against them.

In its speech, the group cited the case of the Yemeni model Entisar Al-Hammadi, who was arrested at a Sanaa security checkpoint in 2021 and subjected to “horrific torture” to extract a forced confession from her.

She was later sentenced to five years in jail in what the association described as “an illegal trial.”

The rights group also urged the international community to pressure Houthis to end the siege on Taiz, imposed since 2015, and stop crimes against civilians in the city.

Taiz was where the militia has committed the highest number of violations to the UN-brokered truce, which reached 3,000 in highly populated areas across Yemen, according to the latest figures released by the association.

On Monday, Yemen accused Houthis of committing 127 breaches to the truce across different provinces in one week.

The Houthis were accused of targeting civilian homes, with their use of tanks, artillery and drones have killed non-combatants including women and children, and destroyed thousands of homes.

Earlier, the association revealed that Houthi crimes have killed and injured 14,000 children since the war began in 2014.