Yemen: Tihama Women's Union calls on the international community to pressure the Houthis to reveal the fate of 190 forcibly disappeared persons.

Arab Sea Newspaper - News Updates

Arabian Sea - Yemen - Follow-ups: A human rights symposium organized by the Tehama Women's Union branch today called on the international community to pressure the Houthi group to immediately reveal the fate of more than 190 forcibly disappeared civilians from Al-Hudaydah Governorate who have been held in its prisons for years, and to release them unconditionally. The symposium, held in Marib Governorate as part of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances under the title "Enforced Disappearance in Yemen... A Continuing Violation," stressed the need to establish a comprehensive national database to document all cases of enforced disappearance in Yemen, given that the figures circulating are much lower than reality due to the blackout and intimidation practiced by the Houthi group to prevent abductees and their families from reporting or communicating with human rights organizations, especially in Al-Hudaydah Governorate. The recommendations stressed that the crime of enforced disappearance systematically committed by the Houthi group is a crime against humanity under the national constitution, laws, and international conventions, and is not subject to any statute of limitations. It also called for strengthening coordination between human rights organizations and the media to monitor violations and highlight this issue. The symposium was attended by a group of human rights activists and civil society organizations, in the presence of the Director General of Women's Development in the Marib Governorate Office, Fanda Al-Ammari, with the aim of raising awareness of citizens' rights, strengthening support for victims and their families, and conveying their voices to the widest possible extent. The symposium, moderated by the union's spokesperson, Taqiya Yaghm, addressed three working papers; the first focused on the legal framework for enforced disappearance and its effects on society, the second highlighted the most prominent challenges facing the families of victims and the accuracy of the statistics circulating for the period 2014-2025, and the third discussed the role of the media in highlighting the issues of victims and promoting awareness of combating this humanitarian crime and exposing its perpetrators.