By Faisal Abu Bakr | 2025-08-27

ADEN -- Fourteen-year-old Aisha Hussein al-Salhi and her 17-year-old cousin Intisar were herding sheep in al-Bayda province's Naaman district when a Houthi landmine tore through their young lives on August 16.

Three days later, 11-year-old Hanan Ayesh suffered the same fate while tending livestock in al-Hodeidah province, triggering a chain reaction that killed several animals alongside the child.

These latest casualties underscore a brutal reality that has only worsened since 2018, when the Associated Press identified Yemen as the world's most heavily mined nation since World War II.

The Masam landmine clearance project announced in mid-August that it had removed more than 510,000 mines, explosive devices, and unexploded ordnance over seven years of continuous operations in the country.

Yet demining efforts so far represent only 20% of explosives the Houthis planted randomly, according to Nabil Abdul Hafeez, Yemen's deputy minister of human rights.

The Iran-backed group has planted explosives across nine provinces, said Faris al-Humairi, executive director of Yemen Mine Observatory.

They targeted farms, water sources, grazing areas, and residential neighborhoods where families have been attempting to rebuild their lives despite years of conflict, he added.

Deadly legacy

Al-Humairi said the Houthis have created "a real catastrophe" through their indiscriminate mining campaign. His organization records civilian casualties almost daily from mine explosions.

Yemen would need more than 20 years to eliminate existing mines even if the war stopped immediately, he told Al-Fassel.

Retief Horn, Masam project's deputy managing director, noted that new mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are planted daily as Houthis continue production with no end in sight.

"When we started Project Masam in June 2018, it was estimated that there were roughly 2 million mines in Yemen, but that number has just grown phenomenally," Horn said in a February television interview.

The scale becomes clearer when considering a single 2021 seizure of 1.5 million detonators destined for Yemen -- a find that raises questions about how many shipments successfully reached the Houthis, he said.

"All the technology that they use to physically manufacture the IEDs comes from outside sources," according to Horn, himself a mine clearing expert.

"We have photographic evidence of IEDs being planted in schools, which is a blatant disregard for basic necessities and rights that are withheld from the local population," he said.

Judge Ishraq al-Maqtari, a member of the National Committee to Investigate Allegations of Human Rights Violations in Yemen, emphasized that mines planted in safe areas and agricultural zones "represent a devastating and long-term threat to life" that will persist even after the conflict ends.

"Mines are the Houthis' tool to sow fear and terror among the people, as their authority is based solely on intimidation and terror," Abdul Hafeez told Al-Fassel.

"Despite the global prohibition on anti-personnel mines, this group insists on committing this war crime and crime against humanity," he said.