How Houthis Are Investing Themselves In Readying Child Soldiers
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Roshan Amiri
- . June 20, 2022
- . Update: June 21, 2022 12:20 am
Yemen–Children are the worst collateral damage of war. This has become even more evident that before. As Yemen prepares its ground for a truce with Houthis, there is more dirt that is coming to surface that meets the eye.
Boys as young as 10 years are now being indoctrinated and being inducted into the Houthis military groups. They are using what they call as ‘summer centers’ for recruitments. There is a call for international action against the terrorist organization. This is not the first time that children have found themselves being dragged into such wars.
Parts of Africa and Middle East have been known to use children as soldiers. They are kidnapped, brain washed, lured into money or easy food and inducted into terrorist outfits. They are exposed to dangerous settings, given guns in their hands and made to chant slogans of war and freedom, without them really understanding of what they are doing.
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Yemeni government officials, human rights groups, and child protection advocates have already started to call for international action to force the Iran-backed Houthis to stop indoctrinating and recruiting children for battle. Various refugee camps at the Syrian border are already known to have inside elements that breed hatred and spirit of violence in kids who have come from surviving families of Daesh operatives.
The warning signs for Yemen comes as fresh videos leaked out from Houthi-managed summer camps showed the militia subjecting children to endurance activities and training them to use arms. So, while Houthis are putting up a show of truce, there is a lot of mindful preparation going on in the background. Children in other videos are seen pledging their allegiance to the Houthi leader Abdul Malik Al-Houthi and vowing to fight his opponents inside and outside the country.
Yemeni Information Minister Muammar Al-Eryani accused the Houthis of extensively enlisting children in areas under their control through annual summer camps where they brainwashed children, gave them military lessons, and later dispatched them to fight government troops.
It is now confirmed these camps were put into operation only in May and in areas that are operated under the Houthis’. Most of them are densely populated with a large of children.
