36 Human rights organizations demand U.S. to reclassify Houthi a terrorist group, coinciding with Biden’s visit

As U.S. President Joe Biden visited the Middle East in a high-profile visit, several human rights organizations were quick to demand a decisive stance against the Iranian-backed Houthi terrorist militia, which has spread terrorism and corruption in Yemen and caused immense suffering to the people.

The move was to require dozens of Yemeni, regional, and international human rights organizations, the United States, to reclassify Houthi militias as a terrorist group.

The Yemeni Coalition of Independent Women, along with 35 Yemeni, regional and international human rights organizations, sent a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden asking him to reconsider the designation of Houthi as a foreign terrorist organization, especially as the militias continue to block peace efforts.

The 36 human rights organizations said in the text of their letter to the United States that the removal of Houthi militias from the lists of international terrorism was aimed at easing the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen, but Houthi militias misunderstood the message and escalated their combat operations over a year and a half without engaging in fruitful dialog, which aggravated the humanitarian crisis and increased the suffering of civilians.

The organizations added that the violence of Houthi escalated after he was removed from the list of terrorist organizations, as the crimes of the militias varied, ranging from siege of cities, bombing civilians, booby-trapping roads and schools, sniping civilians, recruiting children, displacement, stealing humanitarian aid, looting employees’ salaries, bombing neighboring countries, and arresting journalists and opponents.

The organizations said that the removal of Houthi from the terrorist lists enabled the militias to regain the ability to move freely between the financial and international systems, pointing out that the US president should look at the suffering of those kidnapped inside the militias’ prisons, which include four Yemeni journalists kidnapped since 2015, who are at risk of execution at any time, in addition to the suffering of the abducted women who are subjected to all kinds of torture in those prisons.

The Houthis have exacerbated food shortages as of June 2022, and more than 19 million people are expected to suffer from significant food insecurity, a 9 percent increase from the first half of 2022.

The letter revealed that just six months after the Houthis were removed from the list of terrorist groups, the MASAM demining team had collected 2,679 mines in just one week that were planted by Houthi militias.

The organizations noted that since 2015, Houthi militias have killed more than 10,000 Yemeni children in the battlefields after forcing them to enter, in addition to the recruitment of more than 35,000 children since 2014. They have used schools, mosques and summer camps to indoctrinate, train and send at least 60,000 children to the front lines of their wars.

It also reported that women in Yemen have been raped, killed, abducted and detained since the start of the war by Houthi terrorist militias.