The Houthi group has enrolled hundreds of African migrants in the kidnapped Yemeni capital, Sana'a, in its military mobilization camps, as part of recruitment campaigns targeting all groups. In preparation for their participation in what the group calls “the battle of holy jihad” to liberate Palestine.

In recent days, the Houthi group pushed more than 220 African migrants, including children and the elderly, to join secret military courses held in several areas in Sanaa and its countryside under the name “Al-Aqsa Flood” courses, according to what informed Yemeni sources told Asharq Al-Awsat.

The Houthis are seeking to strengthen their ranks with new fighters, by carrying out operations of persecution, kidnapping, polarization, brainwashing, and forcing them to join sectarian and military courses.

According to the sources, the hundreds of African immigrants targeted in the recent recruitment operation are those who were arrested some time ago and transferred in batches from Saada Governorate, the group’s main stronghold, to tactical and military training camps that were established away from the monitoring and oversight of international organizations.

The sources accused the Houthi group of bargaining with numbers of migrants between joining its ranks to fight or forcibly deporting them to areas controlled by the Yemeni government. It stated that this targeting is a translation of directives issued by the leader of the Houthi group, urging the establishment of migrant mobilization camps.

These practices came in parallel with the group’s acknowledgment of launching campaigns to track and persecute African immigrants in Saada Governorate, which resulted, within one month, in the arrest of 1,694 people from several areas of the governorate, and taking them to detention centers, some of which belong to the so-called “Immigration Department,” according to what was broadcast by the Center. Houthi security media.

The Houthi group also acknowledged, through other reports issued by its security services in Sana’a, that it had implemented, since the beginning of this year, tracking, persecution, and kidnapping campaigns, which resulted in the arrest of more than 3,480 migrants in Saada and their transfer to Sana’a.

Ongoing violation

The Houthi targeting of African migrants comes as hundreds of them continue to be subjected to various types of violations and extortion, according to human rights sources and international reports.

The Houthi group justifies its ongoing targeting operations against refugees because of what it claims is their “danger to society.” It deports them from its main stronghold in Saada, and from other cities, and gathers them in its centers in Sanaa, then attaches them to recruitment camps and uses them in espionage missions and smuggling contraband.

Yemeni activists have previously accused the Houthi group of creating two new training camps. One of them is in Saada Governorate, and another is near Al-Jar farms, west of Abs District, Hajjah Governorate. The group attracts hundreds of African immigrants who successively arrive in Yemeni territory. With the aim of attaching them to the fighting fronts, using them for intelligence missions and implementing targeting plans.

The Yemeni government has repeatedly denounced the Houthi group's continued recruitment of African refugees to fight in its ranks, and considered this a war crime and a violation of international laws and humanitarian conventions.

In its previous report, the Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedoms accused the Houthis of forcibly disappearing about 2,406 Yemenis of various groups and ages, in addition to 382 African refugees in 17 governorates, in the period from January 1, 2017 until the middle of last year.