Press Release
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Today, Tuesday, May 31, 2021, the Egyptian Coalition for Human Rights and Development (ECHRD) denounced the Houthi militia’s recruitment of children for hostilities in the cities under its control in Yemen. The number of reruited children has reached 72,000, according to a recent report issued by the so-called Subcommittee of Houthi Centers in Sana’a.
The number of schools that the Houthi putschists turned into centers to blow the minds of children and young people in Sana’a has reached more than 316 camps for male students and 442 camps for female students, including 27 closed summer camps where about 5,000 children are indoctrinated with Houthi ideas. It is expected that their camps will accommodate 500,000-600,000 school students this year in all the cities they control.
ECHRD condemns this crime perpetrated by the Houthi group against Yemeni children, as it contradicts the principles of international humanitarian law and human rights conventions, in particular with the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict which is known as (OPAC).
ECHRD calls on the international community and United Nations agencies to make pressure on the Houthi group not to recruit children in intellectual and mobilization programs and activities aimed at recruiting them into armed conflict in light of the Yemeni people’s rejection of this approach.
