Hundreds of bodies were buried by the Houthis in areas under their control in northern Yemen without announcing the identity of their owners or the cause of death.

“Unidentified bodies” are a cover behind which the Houthis hide in an attempt to pass on the crimes of torture and extrajudicial killings they practice, according to human rights activists.

During the first days of this October alone, the Houthi militias buried 126 unidentified bodies in the Hodeidah and Saada governorates, the stronghold of the group’s leader, without any clarification of the details related to the causes of death, or the identity of the bodies that were buried.

The number of unknown bodies buried by the Houthi militia from the year 2020 until October 6th of this year reached 848 unknown bodies, according to statistics monitored by Al-Ain News.

Houthi crimes

The mass burials practiced by the militias since their coup against the state reveal the extent of the crimes they commit against detainees and forcibly disappeared people in their prisons, who are subjected to harsh forms of physical and psychological torture, according to human rights reports.

The burials come with the escalation of Houthi kidnappings and arrests campaigns in areas of northern Yemen under the control of the militias, which coincided with Yemenis’ celebrations of the 62nd anniversary of the Yemeni September 26 Revolution.

Jurists and lawyers believe that the mass burials of what the militias call “unidentified bodies” are part of the militias’ policy to cover up crimes of torture and deliberate extrajudicial killing against kidnapped persons and detainees in their prisons.

The human rights defenders said that the bodies that the militias are continuously burying collectively in areas under their control, undoubtedly include the bodies of kidnappers who were liquidated during torture inside prisons.

They stressed that the Houthi militias’ burial of hundreds of bodies under the pretext that they are unidentified is a serious humanitarian crime, and reflects the extent of their violation of international humanitarian law and human rights.

They pointed out that these practices reveal the ugly face and scale of the heinous crimes committed by militias against detainees and forcibly disappeared people in their prisons every day.

They said: “The international community must do its duty and open independent investigations to uncover the circumstances of these crimes, hold those responsible accountable, and ensure justice for the victims and their families.”

Statistics

Since the beginning of this year, Houthi-affiliated media outlets announced that they had buried more than 150 unidentified bodies collectively in the governorates of Sanaa, Hodeidah, and Saada.

According to statistics monitored by Al-Ain News, the unidentified bodies that the militias buried during the past year amounted to 247 unidentified bodies.

The Hodeidah Governorate occupied the largest share, with the number of bodies buried in it reaching 132 bodies, which were buried collectively in two stages in January and October 2023, followed by Saada Governorate, the stronghold of the militia leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, which amounted to unidentified bodies that were buried. There were 62 bodies last year, and that was in December, then Sanaa had 53 bodies in March 2023.

In the years 2020 and 2021, the number of unidentified bodies buried by the Houthi militias reached 446 bodies in the governorates of Sanaa, Hodeidah, Saada, Al Mahwit, and a number of areas under their control