Rights Report Documents 4,000 Violations Committed by STC Forces in Hadramowt
Yemen Monitor | Newsroom:
The Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedoms announced that it has documented 4,071 cases of serious violations in Hadramowt governorate in recent days, committed by forces affiliated with the Southern Transitional Council (STC).
According to the network, the violations amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, including extrajudicial killings, injuries, field executions of prisoners, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, forced displacement, regional-based persecution, and the looting of public and private property.
The report documented 35 cases of direct killings of members of the army and the Hadramowt Tribes Alliance, 56 injuries of varying severity, and the execution of seven prisoners affiliated with the First Military Region and the Hadramowt Tribes Alliance—acts described as a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions.
The report also recorded raids on 56 commercial shops, the looting of several of them, the storming of 112 residential homes without any legal basis, and 63 documented cases of looting of private property, including homes belonging to citizens from northern governorates. It further documented the arbitrary arrest of 268 civilians, who were transferred to prisons in Mukalla and Shabwa, as well as the forced displacement of nearly 3,500 people, including families who had lived in Hadramowt for more than 20 years, leading to the separation of dozens of families.
On the military front, the report documented the looting of weapons depots belonging to the First Military Region by groups affiliated with the STC.
The network emphasized that field evidence indicates the pattern and scale of these violations reflect a dangerous shift in the nature of violence against civilians, in violation of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, and that many of these acts rise to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
It warned that forced displacement, if widespread or systematic, constitutes a crime against humanity that is not subject to statutes of limitation, and that all those who carried out, incited, or contributed to it bear full criminal responsibility.
The Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedoms held the STC fully legally and criminally responsible for these violations and crimes, calling for urgent intervention by local authorities and the regional and international community to protect civilians, halt the abuses, ensure accountability, and prevent impunity.
The network also demanded the immediate release of those arbitrarily detained, the disclosure of the fate of the forcibly disappeared, the return of looted public and private property to their owners, the opening of an independent international investigation into extrajudicial killings and unlawful executions, the provision of urgent protection for civilians in affected areas, and the prosecution of all those responsible.
