Tag: war

Houthi Militias Blackmail Families and Exploit Education as a Trap for Child Recruitment

The American Center for Justice (ACJ) condemns the escalating campaigns of forced recruitment carried out by the Houthi militia against children in Sana’a, Damt, and other areas. Based on field testimonies, the Center has documented that the militia systematically pressures families and blackmails parents by threatening that their children will fail in school, in an effort to force them to send their children to indoctrination and recruitment environments.

The American Center for Justice (ACJ) notes that these violations go beyond conventional recruitment efforts and extend to abducting children from the streets without their families’ knowledge, as well as exploiting families facing severe health and economic hardship in order to force them to give up their children and send them to the front lines, particularly the Taiz front.

The American Center for Justice (ACJ) has documented field testimonies confirming these violations. In one case, the Center recorded the testimony of a mother in Sana’a who lives in a state of fear after militia members threatened that her son would fail in school in order to force her to send him to indoctrination camps.

In another case, the militia exploited the circumstances of a government employee who had become incapacitated by an illness that had left him unable to work. After his government salary had been cut off for ten years, Houthi operatives came to him and told him that his illness exempted him from fighting. They then compelled him, through intimidation, to send his young son to the Taiz front.

The American Center for Justice (ACJ) has uncovered further dimensions of these violations, including falsifying the fate of recruited children and exploiting the suffering of their families. The Center investigated the case of a 13-year-old child who was captured on the Mokha front. After contact with him was lost, the Houthi militia printed and circulated his photograph as that of a person killed in action and informed his family that he had been killed in the fighting. The child later appeared to be alive and was receiving medical treatment at a military field hospital.

The American Center for Justice (ACJ) emphasizes that the Houthi militia is fundamentally a rebel entity and that all of its actions and conduct on the ground, including recruitment and mobilization involving both adults and children, constitute unlawful practices. The Center stresses that the militia deprives children of their right to education and a normal life and usurps families’ ability to make decisions concerning the protection of their members.

The recruitment of children under the age of 18 constitutes a clear violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict. The recruitment of children under the age of 15 and their deployment in hostilities rises to the level of war crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The American Center for Justice (ACJ) calls on the human rights community and United Nations organizations to intervene immediately to halt these recruitment operations, activate accountability mechanisms against Houthi militia leaders responsible for these practices, and ensure that educational institutions are kept separate from military exploitation.

Issued by:
American Center for Justice (ACJ)
7 October 2026

October 7, 2026
“Mines… Blind Killer”: ACJ Documents Over 5,800 Civilian Casualties and Widespread Property Devastation Across 17 Yemeni Governorates

The American Center for Justice (ACJ) released an extensive field and legal report titled “Mines… Blind Killer,” documenting the catastrophic civilian casualties and property destruction resulting from landmines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) planted across 17 Yemeni governorates between June 2014 and February 2022. Based on a comprehensive year-long field investigation involving site inspections, verified medical and forensic records, and interviews with victims, eyewitnesses, healthcare officials, and demining experts from Project Masam, the report provides documented evidence of systematic violations committed exclusively by the Houthi group.

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The report verifies the killing of 2,526 civilians (including 429 children and 217 women) and the injury of 3,286 others (including 723 children and 220 women). Approximately 75% of the wounded suffered permanent disabilities or limb amputations due to anti-personnel mines, anti-vehicle mines, naval mines, and disguised IEDs. Taiz Governorate sustained the highest casualty rate at 22%—predominantly across its western coastal districts—followed by Al-Hodeidah at 13%, Marib at 8.51%, and Al-Jawf at 8.39%, with the remainder distributed across Aden, Al-Bayda, Al-Dhalea, Lahj, Shabwa, Hajjah, Sana’a, Abyan, and Saada. Furthermore, demining operations faced severe hazards, resulting in the deaths of 33 Project Masam personnel (including five international experts) and injuries to 40 others.

The investigation substantiates the destruction of civilian transportation and rural livelihoods. Anti-vehicle mines completely destroyed 425 vehicles and partially damaged 163 others, while 334 agricultural farms were rendered unusable and 2,185 head of livestock were killed. The report documents advanced camouflage techniques used by Houthi forces, including encasing explosives in resin matching local rocks and soil, disguising devices as toys or household containers, integrating sensitive magnetic sensors, and deploying naval mines along Red Sea transit routes and fishing grounds off Midi and Al-Hodeidah. Compound violations include the forced displacement of rural communities, denial of safe return to liberated areas, contamination of water sources and grazing paths, denial of humanitarian access, and obstruction of students’ access to schooling.

ACJ classifies these acts as grave breaches of the 1997 Ottawa Convention (ratified by Yemen in 1998), Protocol II of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, and Customary International Humanitarian Law prohibiting indiscriminate warfare, constituting war crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The Center calls on the Houthi group to immediately cease the manufacture and planting of landmines, surrender comprehensive minefield maps, and destroy its stockpiles. ACJ further urges the international community to sanction responsible military commanders and expand technical and medical assistance for mine clearance and survivor rehabilitation.

October 1, 2026
“Manufacturing Violence and Hatred”: ACJ Documents Houthi Indoctrination and Child Recruitment in Summer Camps Across Controlled Governorates

The American Center for Justice (ACJ) released a specialized qualitative report titled “Manufacturing Violence and Hatred,” documenting the objectives, curricula, and systematic human rights violations associated with the summer centers operated by the Houthi movement for school-age children and youth between 2017 and 2022 under the banner of “Education and Jihad”. Based on field investigations, on-site inspections, interviews with educators, academics, parents, and merchants across Sana’a, Dhamar, Al-Mahwit, Al-Hodeidah, Ibb, Saada, and Al-Jawf, and a rigorous forensic review of seven core instructional textbooks, the report exposes the operational mechanisms behind these camps.

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The findings demonstrate that the Houthi group utilizes summer courses as a systematic conduit for military mobilization to replenish depleted combat ranks. In 2022 alone, the ACJ documented the recruitment of 701 children from summer centers into combat formations: 189 in Saada, 186 in Dhamar (with 85% under the age of 15), 119 in Sana’a, 111 in Amran, 42 in Al-Hodeidah, 35 in Al-Mahwit, and 19 in Ibb. The report records grave humanitarian consequences stemming from this indoctrination, detailing confirmed instances where children returned from camps exhibiting acute behavioral hostility, including parricide and physical violence against immediate family members who questioned loyalty to the group’s leadership. In multiple verified cases, recruited minors were deployed directly to active frontlines in Marib and Al-Jawf, where they were killed in combat or sustained catastrophic injuries resulting in permanent limb amputations, often without the prior knowledge or consent of their families.

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Beyond child soldiering, the report details compound violations against educational institutions and the right to education. The Houthi authorities closed 118 established summer educational centers in Sana’a, raided and looted 89 others, and revoked licenses for teaching the Holy Quran in independent institutions and mosques. The group weaponized educational access by providing free curricula and tuition waivers exclusively to children attending sectarian summer camps, while imposing mandatory fees on the general public school population. Furthermore, the group deployed coercion to enforce ideological conformity in traditionally Shafi’i communities across Ibb and Al-Hodeidah, while subjecting commercial merchants in Sana’a, Dhamar, and Ibb to systematic financial extortion to fund the multibillion-rial expenses of running hundreds of open and closed military-style encampments.

Textual analysis of the 278 pages across seven instructional booklets confirms the systematic presence of content that glorifies death, sanctions sectarian violence, and incites hatred. Curricula for primary-level children incorporate phrases such as “I will slaughter you,” mandate the chanting of the group’s sectarian slogan, and frame non-adherents as hypocrites and enemies of faith, entirely omitting foundational concepts of civic coexistence, peace, and national identity.

Under international law, the compulsory conscription and recruitment of children under the age of 15 into armed forces or their use in hostilities constitute war crimes under Article 8(2)(e)(vii) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. These acts also stand in direct violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict. The ACJ recommends that the Houthi group immediately shutter all closed and open summer camps, abolish curricula that promote hatred and militancy, adhere to its signed UN Action Plan on child recruitment, and redirect operational funds toward public school teacher salaries. The Center also urges the international community and the United Nations to exert decisive pressure to halt child mobilization and hold commanders implicated in the unlawful recruitment of children legally accountable.

October 1, 2026
Siege of Taiz: A Humanitarian Crisis”: ACJ Documents Nine Years of Blockade, Collective Punishment, and Over 9,300 Civilian Casualties

The American Center for Justice (ACJ) issued a comprehensive investigative report titled “Siege of Taiz: A Humanitarian Crisis,” examining the devastating humanitarian, social, and economic consequences of the nine-year siege imposed on Taiz Governorate by the Houthi group from March 2015 through 2024. Utilizing rigorous field monitoring methodologies, photographic evidence, and verified testimonies from victims, healthcare workers, and eyewitnesses, the report substantiates the severe collective punishment inflicted on the governorate’s civilian population.

The report documents 3,021 civilian deaths and 6,361 injuries resulting from Houthi sniper fire, direct artillery shelling, and indiscriminate landmines. This includes 1,778 civilians killed (529 children, 228 women) and 4,427 injured by shelling; 824 civilians killed (166 children, 87 women) and 1,155 wounded by snipers; and 419 killed alongside 779 injured by landmines and improvised explosive devices. In parallel, 477 individuals were arbitrarily arrested, 79 subjected to enforced disappearance, and 59 tortured, predominantly at checkpoints situated along precarious alternative transit corridors.

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The blockade closed the city’s primary eastern, western, and northern arterial routes, forcing more than 1.5 million urban residents onto steep, unpaved mountain bypasses such as Heijat Al-Abd and Al-Aqroudh. These hazardous pathways witnessed 561 vehicular accidents, causing 434 fatalities, 807 injuries, and material losses exceeding two million dollars. The group obstructed 31 humanitarian relief operations and confiscated 22 truckloads of essential food and medical aid for military use. Healthcare services collapsed as hospitals were deprived of medical supplies and fuel; in the first year alone, 26 civilians, including nine newborns, died due to oxygen deprivation. Furthermore, the siege displaced 44,749 families across 17 districts, emptied 22 villages entirely, severed 75% of the municipal water supply, obstructed sanitation operations leading to epidemic outbreaks, and caused essential commodity prices to surge by 500% alongside a 1,000% escalation in transportation costs.

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ACJ defines the ongoing siege as a war crime under the amended Rome Statute and Article 14 of the Second Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions prohibiting the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, while also amounting to persecution and crimes against humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute. The Center urges the international community to treat the siege of Taiz as a non-negotiable humanitarian priority, demanding the unconditional reopening of all main transit corridors, the surrender of minefield maps, and full restoration of municipal water and aid flows.

October 1, 2026
“Tears on Rubble”: ACJ Documents Systematic Detonation of 716 Homes and Mass Displacement in Yemen

The American Center for Justice (ACJ) released an investigative human rights report titled “Tears on Rubble,” documenting the deliberate and widespread bombing of private dwellings across 15 Yemeni governorates from March 2011 to September 2023. Based on a two-year field investigation involving physical site inspections, photographic evidence, and interviews with victims and eyewitnesses, the report substantiates the detonation of 716 homes, framing the practice as a systematic tool of political retribution and terror against civilian dissidents.

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The findings assign primary legal responsibility to the Houthi movement for 703 detonations (representing 98.18% of all recorded incidents), while attributing the remainder to individual violations committed by the Popular Resistance in Taiz (7 incidents), ISIS in Al-Bayda (5 incidents), and the Shabwani Elite Forces in Shabwa (1 incident). Al-Bayda Governorate suffered the highest concentration of destruction with 118 demolished homes, followed by Taiz (110), Al-Jawf (76), Saada (73), and Sana’a (57). In 71.64% of documented incidents (513 cases), armed units carried out pillaging of movable assets—including personal vehicles, legal title deeds, identity documents, and jewelry—prior to rigging structures with high-grade explosives such as TNT.

The report underscores grave civilian casualties and compound violations directly tied to these demolitions: 25 individuals—including 11 children and 5 women—were killed under the rubble of their homes, while 24 others sustained critical injuries, all under Houthi operations. The blasts and invasive night raids induced acute trauma across affected communities, causing 27 documented miscarriages among pregnant women and widespread psychological disorders among children. The destruction resulted in the arbitrary displacement of 1,123 families; 89% fled to alternative governorates, with roughly 65% left destitute in makeshift displacement camps across Marib, Taiz, and Al-Dhalea. Furthermore, the loss of civil records buried under rubble deprived at least 239 children of basic schooling.

Under international humanitarian law, particularly the rules governing non-international armed conflicts and the Geneva Conventions’ Additional Protocol II, the arbitrary destruction of civilian objects without imperative military necessity constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Under Yemeni domestic legislation, including Articles 137 and 306 of Penal Law No. 12 of 1994, these acts constitute banditry (Hirabah) and aggravated property sabotage punishable by death. ACJ demands that the Houthi group completely dismantle its practice of residential demolitions and compensate victims, calls on the internationally recognized government to initiate national criminal proceedings against perpetrators, and urges the international community and the UN Security Council to hold violators individually accountable without impunity.

October 1, 2026
They Were Rendered Homeless”: ACJ Documents Forced Eviction and Arson of 20 Civilian Homes in Aden’s Jabal Al-Fors

The American Center for Justice (ACJ) released a field-based human rights report titled “They Were Rendered Homeless,” documenting the mass forced displacement, arbitrary home invasions, and intentional burning of civilian residences in the Jabal Al-Fors area of the Crater District, Aden Governorate. The report examines events following four days of intense urban combat that erupted on October 2, 2021, between rival armed formations affiliated with the Southern Transitional Council (STC)—specifically the Security Belt Forces and a faction commanded by the former head of Camp 20, Imam Al-Nubi. The hostilities in densely populated areas, including Al-Taweel Street, resulted in civilian casualties, extensive destruction of shops, residences, and vehicles, and the tactical exploitation of Jabal Al-Fors as an elevated firing position.

The field investigations conducted by ACJ’s monitoring team confirm that approximately 200 impoverished and marginalized families had resided on Jabal Al-Fors for years due to wartime economic hardship and displacement. On October 12, 2021, STC-affiliated military personnel accompanied by female police units raided these residences without judicial warrants or formal eviction notices. The forces ordered the families to vacate within 48 hours under the pretext of clearing informal settlements and searching for individuals tied to the earlier clashes. Upon the expiration of the deadline, armed squads mounted on military vehicles forcibly expelled the inhabitants, shattered doors and windows, and systematically set fire to 20 dwellings. In multiple documented instances, residents were coerced under direct threat of arms to burn down their own homes.

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The report identifies severe compound violations resulting from this operation, including armed intimidation, family separations, the complete interruption of schooling for children, and the denial of shelter to vulnerable populations, including historically marginalized communities (Muhammasheen). Driven by a lack of financial means to secure alternative housing, several families returned to the charred sites the following day to erect rudimentary cloth tents. ACJ notes an absence of institutional support, legal protection, or emergency relief from local authorities and humanitarian agencies.

ACJ classifies these acts as severe breaches of domestic property protections, international human rights law, and international humanitarian standards safeguarding civilians from forced eviction, arbitrary displacement, and unwarranted property destruction. The Center recommends that the Southern Transitional Council immediately halt all forced displacement operations, facilitate the safe and unconditional return of displaced families to Jabal Al-Fors, provide prompt and equitable financial compensation for destroyed assets, and cease operating armed structures outside official state oversight. ACJ further calls on the Arab Coalition to terminate support for irregular armed formations, urges the National Commission of Inquiry (NCIAVHR) to launch a formal investigation into forced evictions in Aden and adjacent governorates, and appeals to international relief organizations to deliver urgent material aid to the affected victims.

October 1, 2026
“Hajjah Governorate: Rights Violated and Freedoms Confiscated”: Comprehensive ACJ Report Documents Seven Years of Widespread Atrocities and War Crimes

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.

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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).

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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

September 27, 2026
“Aal Ammar Cave Cemetery”: Rights Report Documents Houthi Enforced Disappearance and Extrajudicial Mass Execution of 14 Civilians

The American Center for Justice (ACJ) released an investigative human rights report titled “Aal Ammar Cave Cemetery,” documenting the arbitrary arrest, prolonged enforced disappearance, and extrajudicial execution of 14 civilian residents from the village of Darb Zaid, Harf Sufyan District, Amran Governorate, by the Houthi group. The report details the events spanning from the initial abductions in May 2010 to the disclosure of a clandestine mass grave inside a remote mountain cave in Saada Governorate in mid-2023.

The incident originated on May 7, 2010, during a truce following the sixth Saada war, when the local Houthi military commander, Hussein Khattar Srouh (“Abu Haydar”), raided Darb Zaid to apprehend three local youths. The resulting confrontation led to the deaths of Abu Haydar, six of his armed operatives, and five village residents. In retaliation, Houthi forces commanded by military intelligence official Abu Ali Al-Hakim and Fifth Military Region commander Youssef Al-Madani launched a punitive military assault on the village. The attacking forces forcibly evicted women and children, demolished nine homes belonging to the merchant Al-Jumayla family using high explosives, torched agricultural lands, looted vehicles and private property, and abducted 17 civilian residents.

While two detainees—one disabled and another suffering from acute psychiatric distress—were released after one year, the latter, Amer Jumaila, was subsequently assassinated in mid-2011 when a Houthi military convoy repeatedly ran him over on a public road. A third detainee, Hamid Hadi Shaiban, who was 13 years old at the time of his arrest, endured eight years of enforced disappearance and severe torture before his release in 2018. The remaining 14 civilian detainees—consisting of farmers, merchants, and manual laborers who were not combatants—were subjected to complete incommunicado detention for 13 years. Throughout this period, Houthi supervisors engaged in extortion, issued false promises of release, and systematically suppressed inquiries, including orchestrating the targeted assassinations of prominent tribal elders who sought information regarding their missing relatives.

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Following an open-ended tribal sit-in in Saada Governorate in early 2023, senior Houthi leadership acknowledged that the 14 disappeared individuals had been liquidated a year after their capture. Houthi officials offered monetary compensation of five million Yemeni Rials per family in exchange for legal waivers, a settlement summarily rejected by the victims’ families. Material evidence uncovered in July 2023 at the Aal Ammar Cave in the Madhab area of Saada confirmed that the victims were bound with their hands behind their backs and executed en masse before the cave was sealed with stones and mud to conceal the crime. Following public disclosure, Houthi authorities exerted pressure on the families in August 2023 to conduct a semi-clandestine reburial at a nearby cemetery.

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Under international law, the documented acts constitute crimes against humanity under the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and war crimes under Rule 156 of Customary International Humanitarian Law. Under Yemeni domestic law, including Law No. 24 of 1998 on Banditry and relevant provisions of the Penal Code (Law No. 12 of 1994), these acts constitute armed banditry, unlawful detention, and premeditated mass murder punishable by the death penalty. The ACJ calls on the Yemeni government to initiate formal judicial proceedings against all identified perpetrators, urges the international community to establish an independent international fact-finding commission, and demands that the Houthi leadership reveal the fate of all remaining forcibly disappeared individuals and immediately cease arbitrary detentions

September 27, 2026
American Center for Justice (ACJ): Measures Imposed on Dameer Foundation for Human Rights Undermine the Independence of Civil Society Organizations

Dameer Foundation for Human Rights in Shabwah Governorate reported that it was prevented from holding a training workshop aimed at discussing support for girls’ access to university education. This was followed by a number of security-related requirements, as well as intervention by the Office of Social Affairs and Labor, which called for changes to the Foundation’s management, despite the Foundation having fulfilled all required official procedures and obtained the applicable legal licenses.

The American Center for Justice (ACJ) considers these measures to constitute an overreach of the proper administrative framework established under Law No. (1) of 2001 on Associations and Civil Society Organizations. The law regulates the work of civil society organizations and provides them with a clear scope to operate independently, without interference in their internal affairs or the imposition of restrictions beyond those expressly provided for by law.

This incident reflects a growing trend among some local authorities in Yemen toward restricting the activities of civil society organizations and imposing unlawful conditions on their development and human rights work. The continuation of such practices disrupts the work of local organizations and undermines their ability to implement community-based and service-oriented projects that benefit local communities. It also has a negative impact on coordination and cooperation with partners and donor organizations.

Lawyer Abdulrahman Barman, Executive Director of the American Center for Justice (ACJ), said: “Interference in the internal affairs of a civil society organization, or linking its activities to personal positions, runs counter to the spirit of the law and the safeguards afforded to civil society work. It is important for the authorities in Shabwah Governorate to view civil society organizations as local partners that contribute to serving the community. We hope that the decision issued against Dameer Foundation for Human Rights will be reviewed and that the Foundation will be allowed to implement its approved programs and activities without obstruction.”

The American Center for Justice calls on the leadership of the local authority and the Office of Social Affairs in Shabwah Governorate to review these measures and enable Dameer Foundation for Human Rights to carry out its activities in accordance with the law. It further calls on the relevant authorities to ensure a stable working environment that safeguards the independence of civil society organizations and enables them to continue implementing their community initiatives.

September 26, 2026
Inadequate Humanitarian Response Raises the Prospect of a Humanitarian Catastrophe

Statement by the American Center for Justice (ACJ) on Forced Displacement and the Deterioration of Humanitarian Conditions in Yemen

The American Center for Justice (ACJ) is closely monitoring the complex humanitarian consequences arising from the waves of forced displacement caused by the military escalation initiated by the Houthi militia, as well as the ongoing clashes and direct shelling affecting several Yemeni governorates.

According to documented statistical data issued by the Executive Unit for the Management of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camps, as of 8 September 2026, 6,269 families, comprising 44,149 individuals, have been displaced. They have been forced to leave their homes and abandon their livelihoods and property under the direct threat to their lives and safety.

The displaced population is distributed across several host areas, with Taiz Governorate receiving the largest number, hosting 4,492 families comprising 31,444 individuals, distributed across 12 districts. It is followed by Al-Hudaydah Governorate, which hosts 1,471 families comprising 10,297 individuals, most of whom are concentrated in the districts of Hays and Al-Khawkhah. Lahj Governorate has received 182 families comprising 1,274 individuals across five host districts. In addition, Aden Governorate has recorded 104 families comprising 728 individuals in the districts of Dar Saad, Al-Mansoura and Al-Buraiqah, while Abyan Governorate hosts 58 families comprising 406 individuals in camps in the districts of Khanfar and Zinjibar.

The figures contained in the report reflect serious shortcomings in the adequacy of humanitarian interventions and the response of relief organizations. This gap is particularly evident in Aden Governorate, where, as of the date of the report’s preparation, no sectoral humanitarian response or emergency assistance had been recorded for newly displaced families. Of these, 57 families are living with host families that are themselves already facing severe livelihood pressures.

In Al-Hudaydah Governorate, food assistance has been limited to 35 interventions for a displaced population of 1,471 families, revealing a severe shortage of food assistance. Their suffering is further compounded by the tangible lack of safe drinking-water supplies, the deterioration of sanitation and shelter services, and shortages in emergency health care and protection services. This places the most vulnerable groups, including children, women, older persons, persons with disabilities, and families living with chronic illnesses, at escalating health and humanitarian risk.

The American Center for Justice affirms that the continued fighting and shelling constitute the direct cause of the displacement of thousands of families and the deprivation of their fundamental right to safety and stability. The Center further considers that making the provision of life-saving assistance contingent upon the completion of surveys and detailed assessments results in prolonging the suffering of victims and compounding the risks they face.

Accordingly, the Center calls upon all parties to immediately cease military operations and shelling affecting residential areas, and to comply with the rules of international humanitarian law in order to protect civilians.

The Center also urges international organizations and donor entities to mobilize financial and operational resources and to deliver humanitarian assistance in the areas of food, shelter, water and health care in parallel with field assessment and verification processes. It further calls for prioritizing support for areas where no humanitarian response has been available, establishing dedicated protection programmes for the most vulnerable groups, and supporting host communities that are themselves suffering the effects of war even before becoming host communities. Failure to do so will further intensify pressure on already limited resources and raise the prospect of a humanitarian catastrophe with potentially far-reaching and unbounded consequences.

Issued by the American Center for Justice (ACJ)
10 September 2026

September 10, 2026