Houthis Arrest 400 African Migrants, Expel them to Govt Regions

The Iran-backed Houthi militias cracked down on Friday against a protest organized by African migrants in front of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office in the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

The protesters were demanding that their plight in Yemen be brought up at international arenas and for the UN to investigate the arson attack committed by the Houthis against them on March 7.

Local sources in Sanaa told Asharq Al-Awsat that Houthis arrived at the scene of the protest and soon attacked the demonstrators using clubs and live bullets.

At least two protesters were killed and over 400 Ethiopians and Somalis, including 50 women, were arrested. They were taken to unknown locations.

This is the third Houthi attack against African migrants in less than two weeks. On Thursday, they attacked migrants and kidnapped others when they staged a protest against the militias’ repeated violations against them.

Witnesses said the militias transported the detainees to regions under their control in the Taiz province. They then made them walk on foot towards government-controlled areas in the neighboring Aden and Lahj provinces.

The sources did not have accurate figures over the number of migrants who were forced to leave Sanaa, but it estimated them at around 400, including women and children.

Last month, the UN called for a probe into a fire that killed at least 40 migrants at a holding facility in Sanaa, after Human Rights Watch said it was started by the Houthis.

The rights group said the detainees -- most of them Ethiopian -- had been protesting against overcrowding on March 7 when camp guards rounded up hundreds of them in a hangar.

They then fired “unidentified projectiles” into the building, it said.

HRW said Houthi security forces had locked the migrants in the building after a “skirmish” between guards and detainees. Citing migrant witnesses, it said the militants had then launched two unidentified projectiles into the building.