Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR UK) said that Yemeni civilians are facing death in the Abdiya district after it fell under the control of the Houthi group, which launched retaliatory attacks targeting individuals and infrastructure of the district. Moreover, the Houthis prevented the arrival of relief supplies.
These attacks were an expanded military operation led by the Houthi group to have full control on Ma’rib.
The Houthi group – one of the parties to the Yemeni conflict that has been going on for seven years – seized Abdiya district in the governorate of Ma’rib in central Yemen on Friday, October 15, after besieging it for more than three weeks, during which it deprived 35,000 citizens of food and the necessary medical supplies.
After controlling the directorate, the Houthis carried out many reprisals operations against the residents, as it isolated the villages and areas it controlled and bombed communication towers and cutoff roads leading to those areas. It also burnt and bombarded some houses in Al-Harq village.
The Houthi group also arrested a large number of men, youth and children, in addition to looting most of the houses in the village of Al-Ghoul, and forcing women and children to leave their homes.
The Houthis made several raids on citizens’ homes in the district of Al-Shuriyah village, and imposed a siege on the village of Al-Qarya.
Since 2015, the conflict between the coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE and the armed Houthi movement has led to serious crimes amounting to war crimes, as tens of thousands of civilians were killed and injured, during indiscriminate raids, assassinations and extrajudicial executions, and citizens were subjected to enforced disappearance and torture.
The parties to the war, especially the Houthis, obstructed the delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians.
AOHR UK renewed its call on the international community and the various countries to intervene to put an end to the retaliatory practices of the Houthis, and to work effectively to end the bloody war that turned Yemen into a pile of ashes, leaving the worst humanitarian crisis in modern history.
