Sanaa: Yemen’s Minister of Information criticized the continued silence of the international community regarding the recruitment of children by Iranian terrorist Houthi militia in select areas of control.
According to a statement released by the country’s Information Minister Muammar Eryani on Monday, the international community has not taken any step to stop the Houthi militia’s recruitment of children, to use them for war.
He explained that this comes in light of the declaration of the UN armistice and the efforts being made to reach a comprehensive ceasefire and a comprehensive political solution.
In a series of tweets through his official account, Muammar Eryani wrote, “Scenes from summer centers of terrorist Houthi militia affiliated with Iran leaders, while mobilizing children with extremist ideas & death slogans, violence & hatred, confirm preparations for new cycle of violence, & continued largest child recruitment operation in human history.”
He published a leaked video clip of Houthi leaders mobilizing children in the so-called summer centers with extremist ideas and death slogans.
He also called on the international community, the United Nations, and the UN and US envoys to take a strong and clear position on this heinous crime, and to put pressure to stop the recruitment of children by the Houthi terrorist militia, to prosecute those responsible for it from the leaders and elements of the militia, and to include them on the international terrorist lists.
As per media reports, previous humanitarian reports released in 2018 indicated that more than 19,500 children had been recruited by the Houthi group in the country’s northern provinces, while the UN claims to have verified the recruitment of nearly 3,500 Yemeni children.
More than 10,200 children have been killed or maimed in the war, the UN says. It’s unclear how many may have been combatants.
Yemen’s civil war erupted in 2014 when the Iran-backed Houthis seized Sanaa and forced the government into exile. A Saudi-led coalition, including the United Arab Emirates, entered the war in early 2015 to try to restore the government to power.
War monitors estimate the conflict has killed over 14,500 civilians and 150,000 people when combatants are included. The fighting also created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
