Landmines laid by Houthi militias in Yemen continue to kill and cause serious injuries to civilians in areas where active hostilities have ceased and are preventing farmers from accessing their land, Human Rights Watch said this week.
“Houthi forces flouted the landmine ban for years and Yemeni civilians are paying the price as these weapons kill and wound indiscriminately,” said Human Rights Watch. “There is an urgent need to step up clearance of landmines to save lives, prevent unnecessary suffering, and ensure people can safely access their homes and livelihoods.”
The presence of uncleared landmines has had a devastating impact on residents of al-Shaqb, a village in Sabir Al-Mawadim district on the mountainous outskirts of Taizz city. Out of a few thousand residents—there has been no census since 2004—28 have been injured and six killed by landmines in the years immediately following a 2015 siege of Taizz and the surrounding areas.
Human Rights Watch researchers visited al-Shaqb in April 2024 and interviewed seven residents, including four landmine survivors, two people whose family members were killed by landmines, and al-Shaqb’s community leader. All four survivors have a permanent disability from their injuries. Everyone interviewed had been displaced from their homes to a nearby village.
Al-Shaqb is located in a valley between two mountain peaks, one controlled by the internationally-recognized Yemeni government (Mazaal Peak) and the other controlled by Houthi armed forces (Al-Saleheen Peak). While al-Shaqb is on a front line, most active fighting ceased several years ago, though snipers remain in the area and sporadically shoot at and sometimes kill civilians. Most recently, on March 23, residents said a Houthi sniper shot and seriously injured a child who was coming home from school.
Most of al-Shaqb’s residents, many of whom are farmers or herders, were displaced from their land earlier in the conflict. According to al-Shaqb's community leader, over 257 families have been displaced. With the decrease in active fighting in the past few years, several residents trying to return to their homes, tend to agricultural land, or graze their livestock have been killed or seriously injured by antipersonnel mines, and their animals have also been killed. Many of those injured have a permanent disability.
Several residents said that starting in 2018, Houthi forces began entering their land at night to place landmines in and around their homes and farmland.
One man interviewed said he was displaced from his home in 2016 due to the fighting. In August 2022, with the fighting reduced, he returned home to retrieve some wheat stored in his house. He stepped on what he said was a yellow bottle in front of the front door and the bottle exploded. He lost several fingers in the blast, which severely injured his leg, other body parts, and his eyes, leaving him with a permanent disability and scarring.
The landmines have also made it more difficult for villagers to feed themselves and maintain their incomes. According to the World Food Programme, as of February 2024, 64 percent of Taiz governorate’s population do not have sufficient food, and Taiz is one of four governorates in Yemen facing “high risk and deteriorating” food insecurity.
One woman interviewed said that a landmine killed her father when he returned to his farm in February 2021. She said that even though the farm was on the front line, her father and other agricultural workers continued to go there to farm because it was their source of income and that there were “only snipers” in the area. “He used to go to the valley every day to farm, and he had no idea there were landmines there,” she said.
Abdullah, a 35-year-old man, lost both his legs to a landmine in June 2022, when he took his goats to graze at a farm in the area. “I used to feed my goats in the same farm every two or three days,” he said. “It was my land and nobody lived there. My life became very difficult after the incident. I used to work as a driver and in other jobs, but I'm not working anymore, just sitting in the house.”
