Panic after the fall of Assad.. Houthi militia launches a kidnapping campaign in Sanaa and Ibb

The terrorist Houthi militia launched a kidnapping campaign in the capital Sana'a (north) and Ibb (central Yemen), amid a state of panic that the Iranian-backed militia has been experiencing since the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria.

The Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedoms said in a statement today, Wednesday, that the Houthi militia kidnapped (17) activists and young men from the Al-Safiyah and Al-Sab’een neighborhoods in the capital, Sana’a, and took them to secret prisons, because they expressed their joy at the victory of the Syrian people and the departure of the Bashar al-Assad regime.

In Ibb Governorate, local sources reported that the militia kidnapped a number of people from Al-Makhader District (north) for the same reasons and took them to its prisons in the district.

In its statement, the Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedoms condemned the kidnapping campaign that took place in the capital, Sana’a, and said that these practices “reflect the Houthi militia’s concern about the repercussions of the situation in Syria on its control in Sana’a, and its fear of a similar popular uprising that would end its presence, which prompted it to intensify the deployment of its security and military elements in the streets and neighborhoods of the capital during the past few days.”

The network called on the international community, the United Nations, its Special Envoy to Yemen, and human rights organizations to clearly condemn these crimes as a basic step towards holding their perpetrators accountable, and to pressure the Houthi militia to release all those abducted and forcibly disappeared in its prisons, and to take immediate action to classify the Houthi militia as a terrorist organization due to its threat to regional and international security and peace, and it also calls for supporting the legitimate Yemeni government to restore security and stability throughout Yemeni territory.