Houthis turning to university youth to compensate human losses

Ahmed Adel

The Iran-backed Houthi militia tries to compensate the human losses it sustained in the past months by imposing a new type of obligatory recruitment to university youths, especially in the areas it controls.

Militia representatives delivered a series of lectures at a number of universities and schools recently to lure students and pupils into its ranks.

According to some news outlets, the Houthi militia squanders huge amounts of money on these events, despite warnings by the United Nations against growing hunger across Yemen.

The United Nations even warned against the death of some Yemenis in cases action was not taken to improve living conditions throughout the country.

Sources within the militia said the militia command insists to deliver lectures at the schools and the universities with a sectarian tone.

Houthi Minister of Education Hussein Hazeb asked the students to join the militia as soon as possible.

He conceded the human losses of the militia by saying there are new photos of killed Houthi fighters on the walls in Sana’a every day.

The Houthi militia marks what it calls the “Day of the Martyr” in the cities it controls, with the aim of mobilizing ordinary people and encouraging them to join its ranks.

On January 4, the staff of the University of Sciences and Technology was forced to attend an event organized by the Houthis that included a visit to the graves of Houthi fighters killed in the battles in the past months.

The militia had previously overrun the university, the largest in Yemen. It appointed a man loyal to it as a president of the university. The militia also put the former president of the university in jail.