The American Center for Justice (ACJ) released an extensive field report titled “Hajjah Governorate: Rights Violated and Freedoms Confiscated,” documenting systematic violations of International Human Rights Law (IHRL) and International Humanitarian Law (IHL) across all 31 districts of Hajjah Governorate between January 2015 and December 2021. Based on field investigations, 26 verified official records—including medical reports, death certificates, and administrative orders—and formal hearings with 235 victims, relatives, and eyewitnesses, the report provides an exhaustive evidentiary account of abuses inflicted primarily by the Houthi group, alongside documented unlawful airstrikes conducted by the Arab Coalition forces.
The report establishes that the Houthi movement committed wide-ranging attacks against the right to life and physical integrity, directly killing 164 civilians (including 15 women and 18 children) through direct gunfire and sniper attacks, while indiscriminate artillery and rocket shelling of civilian settlements killed 131 civilians (including 29 women and 25 children). Shelling, gunfire, and landmines injured an additional 768 civilians, among them 26 women and 58 children. The monitoring team verified the arbitrary arrest and abduction of 2,507 civilians, representing teachers, students, civil servants, and merchants. Of these, 605 individuals suffered enforced disappearance, with eight remaining unaccounted for since March 2019. Within detention centers and clandestine torture sites, 1,352 detainees endured severe physical and psychological torture, leading directly to the custodial deaths of 11 victims.
The findings document the systematic targeting of civilian infrastructure and private property as instruments of collective punishment. Houthi forces assaulted 1,804 private homes, employing high-explosive dynamite to deliberately blow up 31 residences belonging to tribal dissidents and political opponents, while seizing and repurposing 185 homes into command centers or detention facilities. The group laid anti-personnel and anti-vehicle landmines across five districts—Harad, Midi, Kushar, Abs, and Hayran—killing 34 civilians (including six children and four women) and injuring 26 others. Documented property violations further encompass 6,635 looting incidents involving vehicles, commercial establishments, and 2,225 agricultural farms. Furthermore, the Houthis weaponized humanitarian assistance through 7,424 documented violations involving the diversion, confiscation, and redistribution of food aid and medical resources to combatants and loyalists. These coercive conditions forced 3,118 families into exile outside the governorate, while active hostilities and the militarization of civilian towns caused the internal displacement of 42,073 families (295,165 individuals).
Grave violations against vulnerable populations formed a core pattern of the group’s conduct. The report documented the compulsory recruitment of 5,974 children under the age of 15, resulting in the confirmed combat deaths of 674 child soldiers. Tens of thousands of minors were mobilized through 708 sectarian summer indoctrination camps, while 37,623 pupils were entirely deprived of education. Violations against women included 15 direct killings, 26 injuries, seven abductions, four physical beatings, and six forced abortions caused by armed raids on family dwellings. In the educational sector, 54 facilities were bombed, detonated, or transformed into armories and barracks; public salaries for roughly 17,000 educators were halted from late 2016 onward; 2,045 teachers were subjected to mandatory ideological courses; and 31 public schools had their names officially erased and replaced with Houthi military and ideological figures.
The report also details severe IHL violations committed by the Arab Coalition, monitoring over 20 airstrikes executed without adequate regard for the cardinal principles of distinction, proportionality, and military necessity. The report examines three primary incidents: the August 15, 2016 airstrike on the Abs Rural Hospital operated by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which killed 10 civilians and wounded 16; the April 22, 2018 strike on a civilian wedding tent in Bani Qais District, which killed 18 civilians (including six children) and injured 35; and the August 30, 2015 bombing of the Al-Sham Water Factory in Hajjah City, which claimed 14 civilian lives and wounded 12.
The ACJ classifies these documented acts as grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, war crimes under Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and potential crimes against humanity under Article 7 regarding systematic widespread torture, enforced disappearances, and persecution. In its recommendations, the ACJ calls on the United Nations Security Council and the broader international community to implement robust mechanisms ensuring individual criminal accountability for perpetrators, while compelling the Houthi movement to demobilize recruited child soldiers, cease extrajudicial detentions, surrender comprehensive minefield cartography, and guarantee unhindered access for international humanitarian agencies. The Center further urges the Arab Coalition and the Yemeni Government to adhere strictly to international legal safeguards, investigate unlawful aerial and ground operations, and provide fair and prompt redress to civilian victims
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