Features of Houthi Sectarian Abuse, Displacement of Minorities

FILE PHOTO - Armed Houthi followers carry their rifles as they attend a gathering to show support for the Houthi movement in Sanaa, Yemen December 19, 2018. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
FILE PHOTO - Armed Houthi followers carry their rifles as they attend a gathering to show support for the Houthi movement in Sanaa, Yemen December 19, 2018. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
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Features of Houthi Sectarian Abuse, Displacement of Minorities

FILE PHOTO - Armed Houthi followers carry their rifles as they attend a gathering to show support for the Houthi movement in Sanaa, Yemen December 19, 2018. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
FILE PHOTO - Armed Houthi followers carry their rifles as they attend a gathering to show support for the Houthi movement in Sanaa, Yemen December 19, 2018. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

The Houthi militia’s hostility towards other sects and religions in Yemen dates back to before the Iran-backed group staged a nationwide coup. It expelled all Jewish community members in Saada governorate a year and a half after declaring its rebellion against the central authority in mid-2004.

The contentious Houthi policy had spread to affect the Salafist movement, whereby Houthis targeted their education centers in the Dammaj area and forcibly displaced faith group members in a campaign reminiscent of the imam’s rule in Yemen.

Houthis later expelled the rest of the followers of the Jewish religion, the followers of the Baha’i religion and Christianity, to begin the stage of doctrinal change in Yemen through altering school curricula, changing mosques and overtaking public media.

By the end of 2020, the Houthi militia had completed the expulsion of all adherents of the Jewish religion from Yemen, a religion that had existed in the country for millennia.

Reports have said that the very last Jews in Yemen were forced to flee the country in exchange for the release of Levi Salem Marhabi, a Jewish man who has been imprisoned by the Houthis since 2016. But Marhabi remains imprisoned despite a Houthi court exonerating him.

It was also confirmed that a group of Yemeni Christians, including Reverend Mushir al-Khalidi, had been deported after several months of detention.

Moreover, clerics from the Baha’i religion, which had been practiced in Yemen since the 1940s, were also deported.

According to a report released by ACAPS, from 2015, Houthis have been gradually enforcing policies linked to suppressing the religious practices of some Islamic sects. Reports on such incidences increased between July–September 2021.

The Houthis are repressing the population in two different ways:

1) imposing generic religious norms including taxes and celebrations.

2) suppressing non-Zaydi practice (such as the weddings, Salafi centers, and Tarawih prayer which is conducted during Ramadan).

There’s a mixture of ideological and pragmatic intentions behind this such as:

- Increasing revenue by collecting Zakat and taxing religious celebrations.

- Encouraging people to join the frontlines through sermons and other religious messaging, thereby increasing the number of fighters

- Emphasizing that ‘true believers’ are those from the Zaydi school of thought (implying that those unaffiliated are infidels) to increase supporters for Zaydi Islam and hence the Houthis.

There are deliberate attempts to create division among people from different Islamic sects. Incidents related to religion reported between July–September built on previous incidents related to tax collection, music suppression, the closure of Salafi mosques, the replacement of Sunni imams who didn’t reinforce Houthi policies, and making changes on the school curriculum, especially with regard to history and Islamic and social studies.

Sanaa residents told Asharq Al-Awsat that Houthis replaced mosques' imams who refused to abide by the group's policies. They also altered some of the Quran verses in their curriculum to teach and encourage violence instead of coexistence.



Survivors Describe Executions, Arson in Attack on Sudan's Zamzam Camp

A satellite image shows smoke and fire in Zamzam Camp, which hosts displaced people, amid the ongoing conflict in the country, in North Darfur, Sudan, April 11, 2025. Maxar Technologies/Handout via REUTERS
A satellite image shows smoke and fire in Zamzam Camp, which hosts displaced people, amid the ongoing conflict in the country, in North Darfur, Sudan, April 11, 2025. Maxar Technologies/Handout via REUTERS
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Survivors Describe Executions, Arson in Attack on Sudan's Zamzam Camp

A satellite image shows smoke and fire in Zamzam Camp, which hosts displaced people, amid the ongoing conflict in the country, in North Darfur, Sudan, April 11, 2025. Maxar Technologies/Handout via REUTERS
A satellite image shows smoke and fire in Zamzam Camp, which hosts displaced people, amid the ongoing conflict in the country, in North Darfur, Sudan, April 11, 2025. Maxar Technologies/Handout via REUTERS

Sitting in a crowd of mothers and children under the harsh sun, Najlaa Ahmed described the moment the Rapid Support Forces men poured into Darfur's Zamzam displacement camp, looting and burning homes as shells rained down and drones flew overhead.
She lost track of most of her family as she fled. "I don't know what's become of them, my mother, father, siblings, my grandmother, I came here with strangers," she said - one of six survivors who told Reuters of arson and executions in the raid.
The Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group - two years into its conflict with Sudan's army - seized the massive camp in North Darfur a week ago in an attack that the United Nations says left at least 300 people dead and forced 400,000 to flee.
The RSF did not respond to a request for comment, but has denied accusations of atrocities and said the camp was being used as a base by forces loyal to the army. Humanitarian groups have denounced the raid as a targeted attack on civilians already facing famine.
Najlaa Ahmed managed to get her children to safety in Tawila - a town 60 km (40 miles) from Zamzam controlled by a neutral rebel group - the third time, she said, she had been forced to flee the RSF in a matter of months.
She said she watched seven people die of hunger and thirst, and others succumb to their injuries on her latest journey.
The RSF has posted videos of its second-in-command, Abdelrahim Dagalo, promising to provide displaced people with food and shelter in the camp where famine was determined in August.
BODIES FOUND
More than 280,000 people have sought refuge in Tawila according to the General Coordination for Displaced People and Refugees advocacy group, on top of the half a million that have arrived since the war broke out in April 2023.
Speaking from al-Fashir - the capital of North Darfur 15 km north of Zamzam which the RSF is trying to take from the army - one man who asked not to be named said he had found the bodies of 24 people killed in an attack on a religious school, some of them lined up.
"They started entering people's houses, looting... they killed some people ... After this people fled, running in different directions. There were fires. They had soldiers burning buildings to create more terror."
Another man, an elder in the camp, said the RSF had killed 14 people at close range in a mosque near his home.
"People who are scared always go to the mosque to seek refuge, but they went into every mosque and shot them," he said.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports.
One video verified by Reuters showed soldiers yelling at a group of older men and young men outside a mosque, interrogating them about a supposed military base.
Other videos verified by Reuters showed RSF soldiers shooting an unarmed man as others lay on the ground. One showed armed men celebrating as they stood around a group of dead bodies.
The RSF has said such videos are fake.
FIGHT FOR DARFUR
The capture of Zamzam comes as the RSF tries to consolidate its control of the Darfur region. Victory in al-Fashir would boost the RSF’s efforts to set up a parallel government to the one controlled by the army which has been on the upswing lately, retaking control of the capital Khartoum.
The war between the Sudanese army - which has also been accused of atrocities, charges it denies - and the RSF broke out in April 2023 over plans to integrate the two forces. The RSF's roots lie in Darfur's Janjaweed militias, whose attacks in the early 2000s led to the creation of Zamzam and other displacement camps across Darfur.
Researchers from the Yale School of Public Health said in a report on Wednesday that more than 1.7 square km of the camp, including the main market, had been burned, and that fires had continued every day since Friday.
The researchers also saw checkpoints around the camp, and witnesses told Reuters that some people were being prevented from leaving.
In Tawila, Medical aid agency MSF received 154 injured people, the youngest of them seven months old, almost all with gunshot wounds, emergency field coordinator Marion Ramstein told Reuters.
Supplies of food, water and shelter were already low before the new arrivals.
"The lucky ones are the ones who find a tree to sit under," Ramstein said.
Ahmed Mohamed, who arrived in Tawila this week, said he was robbed of all his possessions by soldiers on the road, and was now sleeping on the bare ground.
"We are in need of everything a human being would need," he said.