An investigation by "Yemen Shabab Net" reveals: How does the Houthi compensate for the lack of its fighters by luring school children in the Taiz countryside to fight in its ranks?

According to local residents who spoke to Yemen Shabab.net, the Houthi sectarian cycles began to invade the district, specifically, at the end of 2019. Similar accounts indicate that they began after getting rid of the sheikhs and notables of the region who were stressing the need to neutralize their region and spare it war and strife. Although the militias reluctantly agreed, they sought to weaken them and gradually get rid of them in various ways. The last of them was Sheikh Ahmed Saif Al-Shaabi, who was assassinated in the center of the district in July 2019. After that, the Houthis - and their supporters from the Houthis - seized control of the region and began organizing their cultural courses in a blatant and compulsory manner, until the matter reached school students.

A resident of the district says that most families do not support the presence of the Houthi militias in their area, except for only a few of them, who spoke, adding: Therefore, these militias resorted to trying to penetrate the depth of the district and its desired future generation, by targeting the youth and children in schools, by subjugating them. Forcibly for its jihadi awareness courses, leading to recruiting them into its ranks with various motives and temptations.

He added: The Houthi militias attract school children through systematic jihadi mobilization courses, which are held by the Houthi educational supervision team in schools, which have become a real danger to which families suffer, and have worked to dismantle the ties of families and society and created a rift in the social fabric.

Numbers sound the alarm

Preliminary, unofficial statistics obtained by “Yemen Shabab Net” indicate that 1,500 children, under the age of eighteen, were attracted by militia members to their combat ranks, in the districts of Sharaab (Al-Salam and Al-Runa), while the minds of thousands of students were not spared from contamination by their sectarian ideology. The terrorist intruder into the region, which makes them time bombs, capable of exploding at any moment..!!

Recently circulated official statistics confirmed that there were 640 children, aged between 13-17 years, who were killed in the ranks of the militias during the first half of this year alone, while more than 3,400 children were wounded, most of whom are in Sanaa hospitals. Most of them were recruited in different ways, including cultural courses in schools and summer centers.

The militias deceive many young teenagers and children in several ways, including financial temptations and promises to grant them military ranks, which often succeed in luring them and attracting more of them to their training camps.

According to circulating reports by local human rights organizations, there are “half a million children included in the Houthis’ jihadi mobilization centers” during the last period, and a large number of them are preparing to be burned in its battles as fuel of war for its continued survival..!!

Mining families

“The child goes to school as a student, and comes back as a killer.” This is the situation of families living in Houthi-controlled areas, especially after the high rate of crimes committed by children against their families and relatives after undergoing jihadist cultural courses, or what is imposed on them in schools in terms of reading sectarian texts that distort religion according to the whims, moods and tendencies of the group..!!

One day, the child Asim Fouad Al Kamali, (15 years old), returned from one of the Houthi seminars to their home, full of jihadist enthusiasm, and immediately began preparing his clothes and equipment in preparation for joining one of the Houthi camps. When his father tried to prevent him and advise him, he ended up being killed by a small gas bomb that the child threw at his head in cold blood.

This was the fourth crime committed by children belonging to the militias against their relatives since the year 2020, and it is the 15th crime on the list of murders, overall, committed by recruits in the ranks of the militias in the Al-Salam District in Sharab.

In July 2019, investigator Salim Saddam Al-Hajj, from the village of Al-Zouha in Sharaab Al-Salam District, committed a heinous crime against his family. He stabbed his mother to death with a knife without mercy, then tried to kill his father and brother who tried to stop him and were seriously injured. Sources familiar with the crime confirm that this happened days after the son (the killer) returned from a training camp with the Houthis.

The complaints of many people in Sharaab have increased about the presence of various threats against relatives of children recruited by the Houthi militias, including threats of physical liquidation and arrest, most of which are based on differences of opinion, or even advice given to them to stay away from the terrorist Houthi organization.

Measures for protection

After families became aware of the increasing Houthi booby-trapping of their children’s minds in schools, some were forced to take coercive measures to protect their children from falling into the militia’s nets. Including trying to deport them outside the affected area, and sending them to study in schools located in the liberated areas, close to them, such as the “Al-Fakher” area, or to the city of Taiz, or other governorates that may be far away, such as Ma’rib, or the governorates of Al-Bayda and Al-Hudaydah (the liberated parts of it), where there are relatives of the family. There they take care of them.

Some residents point out that these necessary measures have begun to be taken by some, in particular, after the recent amendments to the school curricula, which diverted the educational process from its main goals and objectives, and turned it into a mere marketing of sectarian ideology glorifying the front and Houthi figures, and to brainwash students and urge them to join the movement. Training camps, through the excitement grafted onto history and patriotic books, which turned - in some of them - into purely jihadi education, and distorted..!!

During the last two years, schools in the city of Taiz were crowded due to the exodus of students from Houthi-controlled areas to study in the city. The Deputy Director General of Education in Taiz, Mr. Bagash Al-Mikhlafi, confirmed that the number of displaced students to the city of Taiz is increasing year after year, especially students in the basic grades (i.e. those who are fifteen years old and under).

Al-Mikhlafi added to Yemen Shabab Net that, “during the past year alone, the number of displaced students from the districts of Shara’ab (Al-Salam and Al-Runa) and the district of Al-Ta’aziyah exceeded more than a thousand students,” suggesting that the number of students who were displaced to study in the city has increased even more. During the new academic year.

Although - as he says - the total percentage has not yet been calculated; However, the indicator of those who are hesitant to request a transfer form, and the refusal of some schools to receive new students since the first week of registration as a result of overcrowding, reveals to us a significant density of students moving to the city.

"Muhammad"... a model of tampering with childhood innocence

The child, Muhammad Abdullah Ahmed (14 years old), represents one of those students whose families took them away to study in the city of Taiz, after the terrorist Houthi militias snatched him from his school, turned him into a small monster, and threw him into the pyre of death, from which he miraculously survived and returned to his village despite the Houthi militia’s announcement. His death.

“Muhammad” belongs to the village of “Al-Sharif” in the “Sharab Al-Salam” district, north of Taiz Governorate. Like other students, “Muhammad” underwent intensive brainwashing educational courses. Starting with school, then Houthi councils, and ending with training camps.

According to one of his relatives in the city of Taiz, who spoke to “Yemen Shabab Net” on condition of confidentiality for security reasons, “Muhammad” was studying in the ninth grade at Al-Jamahir School, which was considered the largest educational institution in the district, before it recently turned into a major center for recruiting children and mobilizing fighters. Through the so-called “educational sector” affiliated with the militias, which is responsible for organizing weekly and bi-monthly cultural courses in the various schools of the directorate.

He adds: The militias began luring high school graduates through jihadist mobilization and unifying the style of school discourse to attract the rest of the school children. Sometimes through summer centers and other times through what are called “cultural courses for the march.” In the next stage, they are added to groups within social media programs, to intensify jihadi mobilization and erase the goal of the future (which is education) from the mind of every child, as happened with “Muhammad,” who began to see the future from the barrels of a gun and the speeches of the leader of the terrorist Houthi militia and their supervisors in the region. .

He continued: We found “Muhammad” gradually withdrawing from study chairs to the collections and journals of “researchers” in the region, and then his attachment to going to the fighting fronts in the ranks of the militias increased, where he developed his relationships with the region’s supervisors and militia leaders in the directorate, the most prominent of whom are: “Abu Rakan” and “Abu Ammar” and “Abu Salah” (the first impersonates the directorate’s deputy security director, and the second is responsible for recruitment and mobilization in schools), and other militia leaders and recruitment officials.

In those gatherings, as he explains: They were studying terrorist implications, listening to jihadi episodes that strengthened public mobilization and alienation, while taking some forbidden things that are said to improve mental activity.

To find out more about what was going on in those councils, a resident of the region spoke to a “Yemen Shabab Net” correspondent on the condition that his identity not be revealed for security reasons as well, saying: “The council of Ziad Mahyoub - one of the researchers, and the official in charge of mobilization and guidance in the region - was filled with children and young people; they were discussing a subject in it. "Al-Hout", which is an Indian "shamma", along with white pills, which are said to increase mental activity, followed by militia leadership speeches and jihadi lessons shown on the screen almost daily.

He continues, saying: “This had effective results, and comprehensive recruitment campaigns were conducted for the people of Izal al-Sharif, Al-Zouha, Aqaba, Bani Wahban, and their vicinity, in their various age groups.”

The first escape and forced return

Thus, “Muhammad” was deceived, who believed what he was told in the enthusiastic jihadist speeches, that “the real martyrdom is on the battle fronts, not in the school classrooms,” his relative says, adding: They were also promising them that every student who joins to fight with them will get a GPA. Not less than 90% according to the directives of their leader, Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi..!! He was only required to change his school and attend cultural courses to study the perished lieutenant Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi, in preparation for being sent to the battle fronts.

Last April, “Muhammad” carried out his first escape from home, heading - with one of his companions - towards the city of “Al-Saleh” in the Al-Hawban region, east of the governorate, where they joined an advanced training camp, in which they underwent intensive jihadi Thaqif courses, along with... Weapon training...

When his mother found out about this, she had no choice but to threaten to attempt suicide by shooting herself several times in front of the Houthi recruitment supervisor. In this way, she succeeded in forcing the Houthi supervisor to intervene and return her child to her the very next day.

“I don’t know what the Houthis did to my child, to make him walk to death,” his father said, commenting on the condition of his afflicted child. As for his relative, who spoke with “Yemen Shabab Net,” he decided that the schools in their area had become “a great danger threatening the lives of our children,” adding: “We are no longer safe for our children from this epidemic that is spreading in the areas controlled by these militias, so it is better to deport them and transfer them.” To schools far away from this dangerous atmosphere for them and their families...”

Warnings and urgent solutions

Professor of Sociology at Taiz University, Dr. Yasser Al-Salawi, believes that “school has a greater influence on children during the stage of upbringing and gradual separation from the family, and the child may even ignore the family and be affected behaviorally and mentally by school.”

Al-Salawi confirms to "Yemen Shabab Net" that education in Houthi schools represents a trap for the minds of future generations, and its burden will be borne by Yemeni society as a whole.

Accordingly, the sociology professor warns that the Houthis’ continued control over education, schools and universities, and the failure to resolve the conflict politically or militarily, constitutes a real danger to the present and the future, the repercussions of which will extend to the liberated areas.

Regarding urgent solutions and what must be done, Al-Salawi called for the formation of a community association to save the children of Yemen from being bulldozed and brainwashed by this pure jihadi mobilization carried out by terrorist organizations.


* Edited by: Investigations Department