Houthi militia burns down camp for displaced in western Yemen

Fatima Abdul Ghani

The Iranian-backed Houthi militia continues its criminal operations against displaced persons, and on Saturday, April 10, it burned a camp for displaced persons in the village of Hilla northwest of Hays in Hodeidah, western Yemen.

According to local sources, the fire broke out and dramatically lit the sky in the center of Hays. The Houthis burned a displaced camp for the children of Hilla after being forcibly displaced in 2018 from their homes, which the militia turned into fortifications and military barracks.

The fire in the camp comes a just few days after the Houthis stormed a camp for displaced people in the Safal district of Ibb governorate.

Witnesses said the gunmen stormed the camp at dawn last Tuesday and destroyed and burned tents while people were still in the sleeping.

Last week, the Houthis also bombed northern Marib in eastern Yemen with an Iranian-made ballistic missile, killing a child and wounding five others, reported Yemen’s Saba News Agency.

According to official sources, two of the wounded are in critical condition, while the missile also caused severe material damage.

Fifty-six Yemeni civil society organizations denounced the international community’s silence on the Houthis’ crimes and its targeting of displacement camps and residential neighborhoods in Marib with various types of heavy weapons, including ballistic missiles, mortars and artillery shells, resulting in casualties, including children and women.

The organizations called on the United Nations, the Security Council, the UN envoy to Yemen, and all international and local human rights and humanitarian organizations to condemn and put an end to the crimes against civilians and displaced persons.

The Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism has warned of catastrophic dangers due to the militia’s deliberate targeting of residential and civilian neighborhoods in Marib, which holds about 60% of displaced people in Yemen, in conjunction with continuous military escalation on various fronts in the governorate.

Yemeni army spokesman Brigadier General Abdo Majali confirmed that the Houthis’ targeting of civilians and displaced persons in Marib is deliberate and has resulted in continued terrorist shelling of civilians, most of them children and women.

“The Houthi targeting comes within a series of aggressions against the people and its continued committing of war crimes, which requires the movement of the international community and the United Nations for immediate interference to stop the Houthi militia’s terrorism and crimes against displaced persons and civilians, which violates international humanitarian law,” Majali added.

Observers believe that the continued terrorist acts of the Houthi militia uncover their efforts to prolong the war and increase the suffering of Yemenis. This Houthi intransigence reveals the urgent need for actual pressure to stop the military escalation and surrender to calls for peace, given that the continued escalation, violations and racist practices of the militia sharply exacerbate the humanitarian situation in Yemen.