By Faisal Abu Bakr | 2024-12-03

ADEN -- The Houthis are forcibly recruiting African migrants and refugees for military operations targeting international shipping in the Red Sea, according to experts and human rights officials in Yemen.

In October alone, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) recorded 6,364 migrants entering Yemen -- a 136% increase from September.

The Houthis have been intercepting migrants as they attempt to cross territory they control, sources in Yemen told Asharq al-Awsat.

The Iran-backed group recently sent more than 220 African migrants to secret military training camps around Sanaa, it said.

Middle East security sources report a recent surge in arrests of African migrants in Saada province, the Houthis' main stronghold, with many detainees reportedly being transferred to military training camps.

"The Houthis target Africans because they're often undocumented and their families don't know their whereabouts," Abaad Studies and Research Center director Abdul Salam Mohammed told Al-Fassel.

"This means the Houthis face no consequences."

The concentration of African refugees on Yemen's coasts provides the Houthis with a ready pool of recruits, he added, unlike local tribes who require payment.

He said the Houthis use recruited Africans primarily for intelligence work -- smuggling them into Saudi Arabia "as immigrants" -- and for piracy operations.

Mounting abuses

In a country where two-thirds of the population needs assistance and 80% struggle to access basic necessities, the militia uses humanitarian aid as leverage for its recruitment efforts.

Human Rights Watch has said the Houthis are exploiting Yemen's humanitarian crisis to facilitate recruitment.

Mayyun for Human Rights and Development documented over 2,200 cases of children forcibly recruited into Houthi combat forces during an 18-month period ending in December 2022.

In an October report to the United Nations (UN) Security Council, the UN Panel of Experts on Yemen revealed that the Houthis are forcing Ethiopian migrants to join their ranks and to participate in drug trafficking operations.

The Houthis turned to recruiting African migrants after failing to mobilize local support, said Fahmi al-Zubairi, director general of the human rights office in Sanaa.

"The Africans, who are looking for a livelihood and have fled wars, conflicts and poverty, are being thrown by the Houthi death militia into its battles to achieve Iran's destructive agenda in the region," he told Al-Fassel.

The forcible recruitment of African refugees violates Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, lawyer and rights activist Abdul Rahman Barman told Al-Fassel.

"The refugee who fled from conflicts and fighting has now seen his life exposed to persecution and danger in the country of refuge," he said.

"The Houthis are forcing him into training camps and frontline combat, violating his right to freedom, security and life."