IV. Huthi Conduct and International Humanitarian Law

Non-state armed groups such as Huthi rebel forces are bound by international humanitarian law whether or not they explicitly commit to respect them. In the armed conflict in Yemen, this law includes Common Article 3 to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, Protocol II, and customary laws of war. [112]

On June 22, 2009, the leader of the Huthi rebel forces, Abd al-Malik al-Huthi, sent a letter by fax to Human Rights Watch affirming his group’s commitment to the principles of international humanitarian law:

[W]e are very careful with the treatment of civilians, and we treat them humanely in a manner that protects their rights mentioned in international humanitarian law and international human rights law... We also confirm being keen to keep civilians neutral and spare them conflict. We also work laboriously towards supporting their protection and saving their lives, possessions and dignity.[113]

However, the Huthis appear to have committed serious violations of the laws of war during the sixth round of fighting. Human Rights Watch received reports from civilians who had fled the conflict zone of Huthis committing summary executions of persons in their control, using non-combatants as “human shields” to deter government attacks, and recruiting children to be combatants. There were also reports that Huthis placed civilians at unnecessary risk by deploying in densely populated areas, prevented civilians from fleeing combat zones to receive medical evacuation, and looted private property.

According to a Yemeni government health official interviewed by Saba.net, on October 8, 2009, Huthi fighters opened fire on a UN relief convoy delivering assistance to displaced families in al Madbah camp, Jawf governorate.[114]

Because of limitations on access, Human Rights Watch was unable to independently corroborate these allegations of serious laws-of-war violations.

Summary Executions

International humanitarian law prohibits the killing of “[a]ll persons who do not take a direct part or who have ceased to take part in hostilities,“that is, civilians and captured or incapacitated combatants.[115]

According to “local sources” interviewed by the Yemen Observer newspaper, a paper with close ties to President Saleh, published on October 14, Huthi fighters executed two civilians—Yahya Bin Yahya Misfir and Ali Dhaif Allah Masawi—by firing rocket propelled grenades at them, and kidnapped nine others when they refused to fight with the Huthis against government troops in Razih district, in Sa’da governorate.”[116]

Human Rights Watch independently learned of a case of an alleged extrajudicial killing during the previous round of fighting. Huthi forces allegedly summarily executed Faris Muhammad ‘Ali ‘Ayyash in Sa’da governorate’s Majz district in early July 2008. According to second-hand information from a relative, for some time the Huthis sought to take control of the farm located on the edge of Majz village, near Dhahyan town, belonging to `Ayyash’s uncle, al-Thulaya. The farm was apparently key to controlling the whole village.[117] The relative learned that on the day of the killing, `Ayyash was in a hut in the fields: “At about 10 o’clock in the morning, around 20 Huthis entered the farm and killed him in front of the hut–with just one bullet in the head.”[118]

Human Rights Watch received information on two instances of alleged summary executions by Huthi forces during the sixth round of fighting.

The Huthis allegedly summarily executed Ali Mizraq on August 9, 2009, in Tallan village, Haidan district. Human Rights Watch interviewed four individuals about the incident, including two relatives, one of whom was present at the scene immediately before and after the killing.

According to his relatives, Mizraq was a local councilor for the ruling General People’s Congress Party. Since the outbreak in early August of the sixth round of fighting, he was the leader of the village guards, a tribal militia organized to defend the village against Huthi attack.[119]

According to Mizraq’s relative:

I was in my house in the nearby village of al-Muhallal, not more than half a kilometer away from where it happened. I heard shooting and went outside. The shooting was coming from the Hasan al-Tallan area, which is higher up in the mountains above Tallan village.I wanted to go and see what happened but the Huthis were shooting at my house from high up in the hills so I could not go. After a while they stopped shooting, so I left the house later that morning, at about 9 a.m., and saw my brother’s body.

I did not see the moment when the Huthis killed him but the relatives who took away the body said they saw armed strangers next to the mechanic’s garage where we knew Huthis had been staying the week before since they had arrived from Duwaib, al-Fadhil, and Haidan. Other Huthis were staying with other Hashimite families in our village. That same day I saw about 50 armed Huthis leave many houses in the village and they went up to the mountains near the village to take up positions there.

They killed Ali because they are against anyone who works for the government. I fled the village because I thought they would kill me too.”[120]

According to a second relative:

Ali had given his car to a local mechanic. On Sunday morning [August 9, 2009], he got a call that the car was ready and he went to pick it up at the garage on the top of the hill. He was shot there. I saw his body. It had four bullet wounds to the chest, two on the left and two on the right. His hands, forearms, feet and lower legs were burned.[121]

These accounts suggest that Mizraq, though a militia leader, was not directly participating in hostilities at the time he was killed, and was thus not a legitimate military target.[122]

Later the same day the Huthis attacked the village and eventually occupied it.[123]

Human Rights Watch was not able to ascertain whether additional extrajudicial killings have taken place.

In another incident reported to Human Rights Watch, the Huthis allegedly threatened the lives of civilians. A member of a tribal militia that fought against the Huthis in Saqain town in June and July 2009 told Human Rights Watch that during the Huthis’ occupation of the town, they “sometimes planted a mine at the corner of a house to get people out so they could advance.” He could not recall whether Huthi forces ever exploded such a mine. [124]

Human Shielding

Under the laws of war, parties to a conflict are prohibited from engaging in “human shielding”—intentionally using civilians “to shield military objectives from attacks” or using their presence “to shield, favor or impede military operations.”[125]

Yemeni government officials have accused the Huthi rebel forces of using civilians as “human shields” but have provided no basis for their allegations.[126] For instance, following criticism of the government’s airstrike on ‘Adi in the Harf Sufyan district on September 16 that killed over 80 persons, including displaced civilians, the Ministry of Defense emailed a statement to the media claiming that Huthi “terrorists are using innocent citizens as human shields.”[127]

Human Rights Watch received information about one possible incident of shielding by the Huthis, although this incident could not be corroborated.

According to a resident of Harf Sufyan, between late August and mid-October 2009 government forces deployed on mountains to the south of Harf Sufyan town while Huthi forces were within and to the north of the town. The fighting was sustained, with thegovernment mainly firing artillery and conducting airstrikes, while the Huthis fired back with artillery. The Harf Sufyan resident told Human Rights Watch,

After many days of the army shelling Harf [Sufyan town] day and night, the Huthis brought about 30 captured officers, not normal foot soldiers, into Harf [Sufyan] town. They made them call the military and tell them they were in Harf so that the military would not attack the Huthis there.[128]

A video posted on YouTube on September 2 provides general support for this account. It shows six persons dressed in what appear to be Yemeni army fatigues. Two individuals with two stars and a crown (the rank of colonel) on their lapels describe the date as the 19th of the current month and their present location as Harf Sufyan, where they say Huthi forces had taken them after they surrendered on August 21, 2009.[129] A military source called the video a “media fabrication.”[130]

Using captured combatants to deter an enemy attack is using them as human shields, which is a war crime.

Deploying within densely populated areas

The laws of war do not prohibit fighting in urban areas, although the presence of civilians places obligations on warring parties to take steps to minimize harm to civilians.

Parties to a conflict are required to take all feasible precautions to protect the civilian population and civilian objects under their control against the effects of attack.[131] Precautions include the obligation “to the extent feasible, [to] avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas” and to endeavor “to remove the civilian population ... from the vicinity of military objectives.”[132]

The independent Yemeni human rights organization HOOD reported that the Huthis have deployed in densely populated areas, unlawfully putting civilians at unnecessary risk, and have recruited children to fight with them.[133]

Human Rights Watch spoke with over a dozen persons about the circumstances in which Huthi forces located military objectives within densely populated villages.

Several people who fled Huthi advances recounted how Huthi forces set up headquarters inside populated villages and shot from within the village at Yemeni military planes flying overhead. While the laws of war do not prohibit the occupation of populated towns, oftentimes the Huthis took little or no action to remove civilians from an area under their control that was at risk of being attacked in the event of hostilities.[134] Villagers would ask the Huthis to stop firing at government forces and aircraft for fear of being bombed by government forces in counterattacks. Government bombing against Huthi positions in towns and villages, in many cases after the Huthis have shot at military aircraft, has often resulted in civilian casualties (see Chapter III).

One of those villages was ‘Allan, in Haidan district, which the Huthis had occupied since the fifth round of fighting in early 2008. Human Rights Watch was unable to visit ‘Allan to determine whether Huthi forces could feasibly have redeployed their forces or safely removed civilians from the vicinity of their forces to reduce the risk to the civilian population in the event of fighting.

A man from ‘Allan told Human Rights Watch how his village became the site of exchanges of fire at the outbreak of the sixth round of fighting in August 2009, as the Huthis fired from within the village at government aircraft:

About 10 days before Ramadan [in early August], the Huthis started firing their 23/147 [Hoon or ZU-23] guns against government fighter jets above from the tallest building in the village and we were afraid that they would attract revenge bombing.[135]

Another man from ‘Allan said,

The Huthis occupied the Mawqi’ house in town, and used a 23/147 Hoon to fire at aircraft. Some villagers asked them not to fire on the planes from inside the village, but they only said “If God wills, no Yemeni will remain. This is the religion of God and we will not go back on it.”[136]

Child Soldiers

Under international law, Huthi forces have an obligation not to recruit or engage children as combatants. The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict provides that “[a]rmed groups that are distinct from the armed forces of a state should not, under any circumstances, recruit or use in hostilities persons under the age of eighteen."[137]

The government accuses the Huthis of using child soldiers. For example, on November 4, 2009, the minister of health and population, Dr. Abd al-Karim Rasi’, briefed international organizations on alleged human rights abuses by the Huthis, including what he said was their use of child soldiers.[138]

On December 10, at an NGO-sponsored conference in San’a addressing the issue of child soldiers, a nine-year old boy and his father recounted how the Huthis asked him to smuggle explosives and detonators in Sa’da town.[139]

In November Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN secretary-general’s special representative for children and armed conflict, began an investigation into the use of child soldiers in Yemen, including by Huthi rebels.[140] The same month, Sigrid Kaag, regional director for UNICEF, referred to “anecdotal evidence” that the Huthis were using child soldiers.[141] On February 12, Coomaraswamy reported that in Yemen “large-scale recruitment [is] going on, primarily among the rebels, but also among some of the forces backed by the government – not the government army but the militias backed by the government.”[142]

The 14-year-old child soldier in the government’s army interviewed by the Times in October 2009, mentioned above, also recalled one battle that ended with the deaths of three Huthis whom he believed were no older than himself. He told the Times, “On these Houthis we found a piece of paper saying they will go to paradise. They convince children to fight by giving them this paper that promises they’ll go to paradise.”[143]

A person from Saqain district who fought in a pro-government local tribal militia defending Saqain town against the Huthis in mid-2009 told Human Rights Watch about the Huthis’ use of child soldiers. He said,

The Huthis used children to fight. I saw two children with Kalashnikovs standing guard for the Huthis outside Saqain town. They were no older than 13 or 14. We did not shoot them, because it is forbidden [haram]: we cannot deprive them of their lives. We only shot them in the feet or their legs.[144]

Pillage and Looting

International humanitarian law prohibits the forcible taking of private property for private ends, or pillage.[145] Looting or confiscation of private property is also prohibited.[146] A force occupying territory may requisition commodities—such as food and fuel—needed for its maintenance, so long as the needs of the civilian population are taken into account. Payment should be immediate.[147]

Human Rights Watch obtained information relating to five cases in which Huthi forces allegedly looted private property.

A man from ‘Urdh village described a Huthi attack on Malahit market, around two weeks after he was forced out of his village in early August 2009:

The Huthis killed three soldiers there, point blank, and took all the qat [a popular stimulant leaf] and looted 200 bags of wheat from a UNICEF school. I saw this from a distance and someone else later told me what they had stolen.[148]

Others alleged that Huthis looted private homes of people who had fled the fighting or whom the Huthis had forced from their homes.

A man from ‘Allan village said that the Huthis forced him to leave all his belongings behind on September 25, 2009, as he was fleeing because they wanted it for themselves: “I had to leave everything behind, including my jambiya [symbolic dagger], before my family and I were allowed to leave.”[149]

A man from ‘Iqab village five kilometers south of Sa’da town told Human Rights Watch that the Huthis forced him and his family to leave their home in September 2009 and that when his brother had returned to check on the house by the end of the month: “He found it empty, completely looted, all the gold, furniture, rugs, and clothes gone. We had a car. The Huthis took that too.”[150]

Relatives of Faris ‘Ayyash, whom the Huthis allegedly summarily executed in July 2008 (see above), said that “50 days after that incident, the Huthis came back and looted the farm, including the water pump.”[151]

In Marawin village, the entire civilian population left after Huthi forces took over the town in mid-August. One villager told Human Rights Watch,

I secretly went back to my village to retrieve some documents for the children ... The house was as I had left it, but other houses were looted, especially that of Shaikh Jailani, which the Huthis had taken over and completely emptied. There were no villagers left, only Huthis.[152]

Human Rights Watch’s evidence does not indicate that looting was systematic. A man from Harf Sufyan told Human Rights Watch that in August 2009 “the Huthis occupied the houses [of strategic importance] on Harf Sufyan’s main road [but they] did not enter the private homes in our area.”[153]

Human Rights Watch heard accounts of three incidents in which Huthi forces unlawfully confiscated private property from local residents.

A man from al-Hariba village, northwest of Sa’da town, told Human Rights Watch that when the Huthis occupied the town around September 2009, they confiscated private property from villagers belonging to pro-government tribes:

The Huthis confiscated cars and minibuses from the Andalunis family and other families without compensation... They told people it was “for the sake of jihad.” The Andalunis are from the Hashid tribe, but most Huthis are from the Bakil tribe.[154]

It is also a serious violation of international humanitarian law for a party to the conflict to destroy or remove “objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population,” such as food and agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs.[155]

A man displaced from the area around Madhabb village, in Sa’da governorate, told Human Rights Watch,

The Huthis want to take half of the harvest so there is no point in going back home. They took half of the harvest in Madhabb and Habasha villages—they take from everyone and if you refuse they kill you.[156]

The man did not know of any case where those who refused to provide the demanded harvest were killed, though such a demand would be difficult for a villager to resist.

The Huthis typically do not exercise civilian administrative functions in the areas they control. However, one man told Human Rights Watch that in ‘Allan village they reportedly began to impose “taxes”: “Since they took over the town, the only real change has been that they make us pay zakat [the Islamic alms tax]. Before, we paid the state.”[157]

Prevention of Flight and Denial of Access to Medical Care

Under international humanitarian law, parties to a conflict must take all feasible precautions to protect civilians under their control from the effects of attacks, including by removing civilians from the vicinity of military objectives.[158]

Civilians also have the right to access medical care. Common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions provides that the “wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.”[159] Article 7 of Protocol II protects “all the wounded, [and] sick, whether or not they have taken part in the armed conflict,” and mandates their humane treatment, including the right to “receive to the fullest extent practicable and with the least possible delay, the medical care and attention required by their condition.”[160]

There are very few medical facilities in northern Yemen. During the conflict, government healthcare staff have left town when Huthi forces took over. The possibility of traveling overland to healthcare facilities in larger towns such as Sa’da town is therefore imperative for those requiring medical treatment.[161]

Human Rights Watch spoke with four people who said that Huthi forces had prevented them and others from leaving their village, including to obtain medical treatment.

A man from ‘Allan village said, “The Huthis wanted to prevent me from leaving town the day after my house had been bombed and allowed only women to leave.” After some time, they allowed him to leave.[162]

A displaced man from al-Hariba village told Human Rights Watch about several incidents in which Huthi forces prevented people from fleeing in order to obtain medical care. In one case, during Ramadan [August 18 – September 18],

A woman from the Bakil tribe had a miscarriage, after the government bombed the area around our town. She could not travel to the Talh clinic, because the Huthis prevented her from leaving. Another man, Ahmad Yahya Andaluni, had a stroke, but could not get to the hospital, because the Huthis blocked the road.[163]

In the fifth round of fighting during 2008, Huthi rebels allowed a woman to bleed to death, eyewitnesses said. A man from ‘Allan village told Human Rights Watch that in October 2008 Huthi forces had let his 27-year-old aunt bleed to death at a checkpoint:

Dardah al-Qatur wanted to leave her village and find safety at the army’s base nearby, but the Huthis shot her with an automatic rifle as she left town. One of my cousins and I tried to reach Sa’da hospital, but soon after we had left ‘Allan in a car with Dardah we reached a Huthi checkpoint and they didn’t let us through.

There were eight Huthis. One, whom the others called Abu Dhar, said, “She is a person who gives bread to the government soldiers, she is an American agent,” and did not let us through. We were there from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. We pleaded with them, but they did not allow us through. She bled to death. They wore masks so I couldn’t see their faces, and I did not recognize any of them.[164]