How the Houthis Transformed the Humanitarian Situation into Systemic Suffering in Their Areas of Control (Special Report)

Yemen Monitor / Reports Unit:

“We no longer think about a decent life with some luxuries, like having domestic gas or kitchen necessities. Today, we are just trying to stay alive, even with the bare minimum.” With these painful words, Umm Mohammed (35 years old—a pseudonym) began her conversation with “Yemen Monitor,” recounting the details of the daily suffering of her family, who live on the margins of life in the capital, Sana’a.

Umm Mohammed, her husband, and their children were displaced from Al Hudaydah Governorate to Sana’a in 2017, fleeing armed clashes. The family settled in the Mazbah neighborhood, where they found themselves facing a new battle against poverty and hardship.

Citizens in areas under the control of the Houthi militia are enduring extremely difficult humanitarian conditions: a scarcity of money and soaring food prices compared to their income, which exacerbates their suffering day after day. This is amid the militia’s policies that have turned the war into a means of enrichment and control.

The Houthi militias have transformed the daily life of civilians in their areas of control into a bitter journey in search of a livelihood and security, due to the disruption of salaries, the continuation of looting and extortion, the imposition of levies (taxes/fees), and the warfare against humanitarian work and its staff.

Umm Mohammed adds: “I start my day by preparing breakfast on a small earthen oven. I make a few simple pastries to stave off the family’s hunger. My children collect plastic scraps and pieces of cardboard from the streets to light the fire I use for cooking and making tea, if available.”

Umm Mohammed describes her feeling of sudden decline from a stable life to hunger and destitution, saying: “The feeling of emptiness after fullness, and hunger after a comfortable life, is very painful. We moved from a table filled with fresh fish to a table with only dry bread and a little tea. Every day that passes is harder and more bitter than the first.”

Her husband works using a motorcycle to secure the family’s livelihood, but what he earns is not enough to provide the simplest kitchen necessities, such as flour and oil, let alone the rent and other expenses that become heavier with each passing day.

She continued, “Poverty has robbed us of everything beautiful. My children are growing up and they don’t know the basics [of education]. Education today—even in government schools—requires sums that we cannot afford. The government school asks for eight thousand riyals for every student, in addition to monthly amounts imposed on them for classroom decoration and matters whose usefulness we do not understand.”

She explains that only her older children were able to study in the early grades, while the younger ones were deprived of their right to education due to poverty and the inability to pay the costs.

Umm Mohammed recalls her pre-displacement memories with a sad tone: “The food was sufficient for us. We ate fish daily, and I prepared diverse meals that I enjoyed cooking. My children went to school, and I could buy what I needed for myself. But today, we can barely get what relieves our hunger, nothing more.”

Umm Mohammed’s family is one of tens of thousands of families living in the militia-controlled areas, who are struggling between poverty, disease, marginalization, and persecution.

A Systematic Policy of Starvation

In this context, human rights and humanitarian activist Najeeb Al-Shaghdari (Head of the Musawah Organization for Rights and Freedoms) stated that “the humanitarian situation in areas controlled by the Houthi group has reached an unprecedented stage of collapse and suffering,” asserting that “what is happening is no longer merely an emergency humanitarian crisis, but has turned into a systematic policy of starvation practiced by the armed group—classified as a terrorist group—against civilians in its most horrific forms.”

Al-Shaghdari added to “Yemen Monitor” that “the years-long suspension of employee salaries, the collapse of public services, and the absence of any responsibility towards citizens, have left millions of Yemenis living in a state of permanent destitution, unable to find sustenance or guarantee themselves a decent life.”

He pointed out that humanitarian aid has been transformed into a means of blackmail and political and military funding. The Houthi group controls its distribution, loots parts of it, and sells it on the black markets. It also imposes conditions on international organizations that serve its interests.

He added, “The group did not stop there but went as far as arresting humanitarian workers, confiscating the contents of their offices, and preventing them from performing their duties freely.”

The head of the Musawah Organization confirmed that “humanitarian work in Houthi-controlled areas has been turned into a political weapon, whereby support is given to supporters and denied to opponents and independents, while the simple citizen is forced into silence and hunger simultaneously.”

Al-Shaghdari considered what is happening to be a direct targeting of the dignity of the Yemeni people and a confiscation of their right to life, criticizing the silence of the international community, which merely observes despite its knowledge of the extent of the violations and crimes committed against millions of civilians.

He emphasized that the continuation of these policies without accountability constitutes a collective crime against the Yemenis, stressing that “international organizations, the legitimate government, and all concerned human rights bodies must assume their responsibilities and put an end to this absurdity that has turned tragedy into a means of funding, and hunger into a tool of domination.”

Exploitation and Marginalization

While the Houthi militia claims to support its fighters and intensifies its levies on merchants and small business owners under the guise of “war effort,” testimonies from within reveal a completely different reality. The fighters themselves suffer from poverty and marginalization, especially the wounded, who have been left to their fate after their role on the battlefield ended.

Abu Abdullah (who preferred not to be named), a resident of Ibb governorate—one of the governorates that witnessed the most Houthi violations—recounts a tragic story of a young man, not yet twenty-five years old.

Abu Abdullah told “Yemen Monitor,” “The young man was seeking to travel to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for work to secure a decent life for his family, but he was kidnapped by the militias while passing through Saada governorate and forced to attend intensive sectarian courses, from which he emerged a completely different person.”

He added, “After his release, the young man was influenced by the lessons he received and decided to join the ranks of the Houthi fighters, ignoring the pleas of his mother and the tears of his wife and young daughter.”

The mother tried to stop her son in every way, even resorting to one of the Houthi supervisors to convince him to change his mind, but the result was shocking. Abu Abdullah continued, “The young man returned home one day furious, severely assaulted his mother, divorced his wife, and then rushed off to the front, heedless of their tears.”

Only months passed before the young man returned wounded, with one of his legs amputated, only to find himself ostracized by the group that deceived him with slogans, after he was no longer fit to fight.

Abu Abdullah continued his talk to Yemen Monitor, “The Houthis completely abandoned him, providing him with no support or care. Today, he lives in a tragic situation, both materially and psychologically, unable to work to support himself and his mother. He finds no one standing by him except for some charitable people and his mother, who continues to care for him despite what he did to her.”

Between the pain of hunger and the misery of poverty, the chapters of the human tragedy created by the Houthi militia in their areas of control are unfolding: a systematic suffering that has affected every detail of life, from livelihood to human dignity.

While Yemenis are collapsing further under the weight of starvation and marginalization, the group continues to exploit their suffering to solidify its power, amid a suspicious international silence that turns this ongoing tragedy into an open wound against humanity.