The UN Security Council Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen calls for the necessity of bringing the perpetrators of these serious human rights violations to justice, as it has revealed that the Houthi militia has committed serious violations against civilian citizens in areas under its control, including women and children.

The report, which monitored the situation in Yemen from July 2022 to June 2023, focused on 3 main axes: serious human rights violations, military escalation, and the humanitarian challenges facing Yemen in light of the Houthi escalation and its refusal to submit to peace options and the international efforts made in this direction.

The report reviewed a number of crimes are committed by the Houthi militia against citizens in areas under its control, including rape of women and children in prisons, abduction, torture of abducted persons, killing without judicial justification, and forced recruitment of children. From a humanitarian standpoint, the report indicated that the situation in Yemen remains catastrophic.

The humanitarian situation in Yemen:

The report highlighted the impact of the conflict on civilians, as this conflict has led to the death of more than 377 thousand people, the injury of more than 8 million, and the displacement of more than 4.3 million from their homes. The report confirmed that the humanitarian situation in Yemen remains catastrophic, whereas more than 23.4 million people suffer from food insecurity, more than 17.4 million people suffer from a lack of access to potable water and sanitation, and more than 12.6 million people suffer from a lack of access to basic health care.

The report confirmed that these challenges included the spread of diseases and epidemics, increased mortality rates among children, increased poverty, and that the recent escalation by the Houthi militia has caused significant human and material losses, as the attacks resulted in dozens of deaths and injuries and the destruction of public and private property.

The war in Yemen also destroyed basic infrastructure, including road networks, electricity, water and sanitation, which made it difficult to access basic services. In this regard, the report called for urgent measures to address the situation in Yemen, stressing that "the current situation cannot continue and the Yemeni people cannot bear more suffering."

Economic war:

The report of the Experts Team confirmed that the Houthi militia is using a set of well-thought-out coercive economic measures to obstruct the work of the legitimate government and prevent it from performing its functions as a government, inferring the statement of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Ahmed bin Mubarak, in which he said that the Houthi militia “uses hunger as a weapon in their aggression.”

The report indicates a number of means used by the Houthi militia as part of its economic war against the legitimate government, including the segmentation of the banking and financial system and the instability of exchange rates after the Houthi militia banned the circulation of new banknotes, not to mention its control of international trade and the collection of taxes and customs duties.

The report indicated that the Houthi militia resorted to double taxation because customs duties on goods are paid when imported through ports affiliated with the legitimate government. The Houthi militia also issued a circular establishing a mechanism to collect government revenues at land customs ports.

According to the report, the Houthi militia treats the areas under the control of the legitimate government as foreign lands for customs purposes. At the same time, the report confirms that the Houthi militia is “effectively dividing Yemen into two states.” In addition, the Houthi militia is working to deprive the legitimate government of any opportunity to collect revenues by launching attacks on oil stations and diverting the destination of imports from Aden to the port of Hodeidah.

The report estimated that the losses incurred by the legitimate government from April 2022 to June 2023, as a result of transferring imports from Aden to Hodeidah, amounted to 637.36 billion Yemeni riyals, stressing that the Houthi militia is achieving greater gains. The Houthi militia has also stopped purchasing cooking gas from the Yemeni government. Which constituted 60 percent of Ma'rib Governorate.

Serious violations:

The report documented serious human rights violations in Yemen, including killing without judicial justification, torture, rape, abduction, arbitrary detention, forced recruitment of children, as well as enforced disappearance.

The report revealed that women and girls were raped in Houthi militia prisons during the period covered by the report. The report also accused the Houthi militia of raping the children it kidnapped, especially in Al-Ahmar prison in Sanaa, noting that hundreds of civilians were killed without judicial justification, the majority of whom were children.

The report indicated that the Houthi militia kidnapped hundreds of people, including activists and journalists, including children, during the period covered by the report, not to mention that the Houthi militia continued the forced recruitment of children. The report stated that more than 10,000 children were recruited in Yemen during the reporting period.

Houthi militia counterfeiting currency and passports:

The United Nations Group of Experts accused the Houthi militia of using counterfeit passports and banknotes in the past. The report stated that it is currently investigating several allegations, including Houthi efforts to order new banknotes from a Chinese company specializing in printing banknotes.

In its report, the team stated that it “received several allegations that the Houthis printed and used counterfeit banknotes to meet their financing needs.” The report explained that the Yemeni embassy in Beijing received a request from a banknote company in China inquiring about a Yemeni citizen who was said to have contacted it about printing new banknotes, financial stamps, and passports.

The report continued: “The team obtained copies of relevant documents, including the passport of the person concerned and a letter dated March 26, 2023, from the Director General of the Passports and Nationality Department of the Yemeni Ministry of Interior requesting facilitation of purchasing ink and papers with security properties.”

The report said that the team’s investigations revealed that the person does not represent the government of Yemen and that his passport, which was found to have been issued on March 19, 2023, was not issued by the government of Yemen. The report added: "The team of experts does not rule out the possibility that the aforementioned passport was issued by the relevant authority on the part of the Houthis, and that counterfeit currencies and passports may have been used in Yemen in the past, and the team is investigating this issue."

In its report, the Sanctions Committee Experts team indicated that it is still investigating the Houthis’ attempt to counterfeit the Yemeni currency of 5,000 under allegations of solving the problem of liquidity shortages, which the country witnessed in 2016 and 2017. The Team of Experts quoted what was stated in its reports for the years 2018 and 2019 about the government forces in Al-Jawf in May 2017, seizing a shipment of counterfeit money worth 35 billion Yemeni riyals ($140 million) in the illegal 5,000 denomination.

Childhood abuses:

The Expert Team's report confirmed that the Houthi coup militia continues to detain Yemeni children as young as thirteen years old in Sana'a, and that these children share the same cells with adult prisoners. The team confirmed that "boys detained at Al-Ahmar Police Station in Amanat Al-Asimah are subjected to rape on a regular basis."

The Team of Experts explained that the detention of children by the Houthi militia comes after fabricating immoral charges and said, “The children are accused of committing indecent cases because of their alleged homosexual tendencies,” noting that “other children are detained because of political cases against them, often due to their non-compliance or Their families comply with the Houthi ideology and systems,” according to the report.

The report said that it documented a wide range of violations that raise concern, given the indelible impact of these violations on future Yemeni generations, and in particular the changes made by the Houthi militia regarding educational curricula that rely on systemized indoctrination to ensure the population’s adherence to their ideology.

The report warned of these Houthi sectarian changes to educational curricula, stressing that the militia is feeding an environment based on hatred, violence, and discrimination, and this would undermine the peace process, security, and stability in Yemen, pointing in the same context to the Houthi recruitment of children through coercion and threats to capture them.

The report said that some families send their children to camps set up by the Houthi militia on holiday for fear of retaliation from the Houthi militia, as the militia takes revenge on families that oppose it by removing their names from the lists of families benefiting from humanitarian aid and kidnapping and detaining the children concerned, stressing that the militia is carrying out By forcibly forcing children to take them to closed summer camps before sending them to the fronts.