Michigan - The American Center for Justice (ACJ) said that the evidence collected by its team conclusively proved the involvement of Houthi members in disappearing, torturing, and killing (14) Yemeni citizens in what was known as the “Al Ammar Cave” crime. Consequently, the Center called on the international community to take the necessary steps to bring those involved in this complex crime to international criminal justice.

In its special report, which the ACJ launched to shed light on the “Al Ammar Cave” incident, where 14 residents of the “Darb Zaid” village died after being kidnapped in May 2010, in retaliation for the killing of members of the Houthi group, the center stated that armed individuals affiliated with the Houthi group committed several violations against the people of the village. That includes blowing up 9 houses belonging to the Al-Jumaila family, burning several farms, and kidnapping (17) people, of whom (14) were forcibly disappeared, and who were killed in the Al Ammar Cave incident revealed by the Houthi group in mid-2023.

The report prepared by the American Center for Justice included exclusive testimonies from some village residents and the sole survivor of that incident. The ACJ team made a field visit to Harf Sufyan District to inspect the location of the incident in Al Ammar Cave and interviewed relatives of the victims and witnesses. The team obtained a lot of information and evidence related to the incident, which proved the Houthi group’s deliberate involvement in torturing and burying 14 people in a group cemetery.

It was obvious to the ACJ team through its inspection of Al Ammar Cave in the Madhab area of Saada Governorate, 20 kilometers from Harf Sufyan District, that Al Ammar Cave resembles a large prison with a large chamber, indicating that the victims were hidden there for (13) before being killed. It seems that the Houthi group placed the victims in it before killing them, as the cave was closed with stones, and when they opened it, they found a group of corpses and skulls. The people were shocked at the ugliness of what they saw.

The victims' hands were tied behind their backs with their clothes according to the statement of their relatives' While one of the witnesses who testified to the ACJ team said, “He saw during the opening of the cave that  skeletal remains showed that they were collectively bound before being killed, and then the cave was demolished on them to hide the evidence of the mass execution." 

The Center notes that immediately after the news of the mass grave in Al Ammar Cave, in the “Madhab” area, became public and was reported on TV channels, newspapers, and news websites within days, the Houthi group quickly put pressure on the remaining relatives of the victims and transferred the remains of those who died in the cave to a cemetery in the “Shamekh” area near the cave under the supervision of Houthi supervisors secretly to evade the consequences of this brutal crime.

The ACJ confirms that the information and testimonies it collected showed the Houthi group’s involvement in several complex crimes, including arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture, and murder. It pointed out that these actions are considered crimes against humanity in accordance with the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, to which Yemen is a party. The mass killing of victims and burying and hiding the bodies in the cave in this way is a violation of human dignity and a war crime according to Rule (156) of customary international humanitarian law. 

The American Center for Justice concluded its special report by calling on the international community to form an international investigation committee to investigate the crime of the “Al Ammar” cave cemetery in Saada Governorate, and to take the necessary legal measures in accordance with international agreements and treaties and bring those involved to international criminal justice. It also called for the necessity of exerting full pressure on the Houthi group to reveal the fate of those forcibly disappeared and detainees in its prisons.