Yemeni Teachers Syndicate documents Houthis killing teachers, calls for help

Ahmed Adel

In light of the grinding war that continues to dominate Yemen, the suffering of Yemeni teachers is exacerbating with the escalation of the rates of violations they are exposed to at the hands of the Houthi militia, in what appears to be a systematic policy of targeting the country’s educational system, according to what Yemeni educators told MENA Monitor.

School barracks

Yemeni government reports have accused the Houthi militia of targeting schools and turning them into military barracks, which they described as a flagrant violation of educational institutions.

Killing teachers

According to official Yemeni statistics, 14 Yemeni teachers have died under torture in Houthi prisons, and about 350 teachers are still missing in militia prisons, especially in the capital, Sanaa.

Yahya al-Yinaei, a media official for the Yemeni Teachers Syndicate, revealed comprehensive statistics about the Houthi violations against the education sector over the past six years.

In a statement published by Al-Arabiya on Monday, October 5, Yanaei said that “1,579 educators were killed by Houthi militants during the period from September 21, 2014 until October 1, 2020.”

He pointed out that 81 of the educators killed were principals and administrators, while the rest of the 1,499 killed were teachers.

Documenting the scourge

Yanaei said that the Syndicate documented 14 deaths of educators who died under torture in the basements of Houthi prisons in the governorates of Sanaa, Hodeidah, Hajjah and Saada.

He noted that 2,642 educators were exposed to various burn injuries by the Houthis, some of which resulted in permanent disabilities, adding that the number of educational administrators injured was 127, while the number of injured teachers reached 2,515.

Furthermore, the Syndicate documented 621 cases of educators who were arrested by the Houthis, while 36 of them were forcibly disappeared. The governorate of Hodeidah came first in terms of the number of detained educators, with 126 detainees, followed by Dhamar with 113, and then Sanaa with 98.

Yanaei explained that 20,142 educators left their homes and schools in Houthi-controlled areas, fleeing to the liberated areas and outside Yemen.

Plea for help

Yanaei called on the international community to provide stronger legal protection for Yemeni educators who have been subjected to murder, torture, kidnapping and displacement for the past six years at the hands of the Houthi militia.

He stressed that it is not possible to achieve complete protection of educators and rebuilding the education sector in Yemen except through a regional and global support system.

He also called on the international community to speak publicly about the Houthi attacks on educators and to intensify efforts to create safe spaces for learning in Yemen, as well as to work for education to maintain a civic and national character with a curriculum that builds peace and stability for future generations in Yemen.

Persistent violations

According to the Yemeni website Al-Mashhad, the Iranian-backed militia launched kidnapping and arrest campaigns against students and educators.

It added that the Houthi militia, over the past seven days, has committed a series of various violations against a number of establishments and workers in the education sector in Sanaa.

The Houthi militia’s violations are a continuation of its organized operations against this sector in order to divert it from its path and turn it from an educational and enlightening edifice to incubators that teach Iranian ideas and to mobilize teachers and young students to fight on the battlefronts.

Iran’s consecration of ruin

In the same context, Yemeni Minister of Information Moammar al-Eryani warned of the disastrous results of the Iranian-backed Houthi militia’s practices in the educational sector as it announced the inauguration of the new school year.

In a statement to the Yemeni News Agency (Saba) on Monday, October 5, Eryani said, “These practices are aimed at ignoring society and stripping its will and management in favor of perpetuating the subversive Iranian agenda and policies of spreading chaos and violence in Yemen and the region and broadcasting its extremist terrorist ideas, which Yemen, the region and the whole world will pay for in future generations.”

Eryani added, “The Houthi militia welcomed the new school year with distorted curricula for the primary grades with the aim of brainwashing children’s minds, falsifying history, distributing political and sectarian screening forms for educational staff, and privatizing public education by imposing exorbitant fees parallel to private schools without taking into account economic conditions.”

The minister emphasized that the Houthi militia’s targeting and screening of teachers, brainwashing of children, manipulating curricula, and canceling free education and turning it into a gateway for corruption, investment and financing its war effort are systematic sweeping operations of the educational sector aimed at pushing students out of school and emptying the educational process of its content.