Yemen calls for international pressure against Houthi recruitment of child soldiers

Yemen’s Information Minister Muammar Al-Eryani led the call on Friday, during International Children Day. (File/AFP)
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  • Al-Eryani noted the Houthis have replaced mainstream education with “radicalization courses” imposed on “hundreds-of-thousands of children” to push them into battlefields.

DUBAI: Yemen’s Information Minister Muammar Al-Eryani called on the international community to classify the Houthi militia as a terrorist organization and urged countries to pressure the group to stop recruiting children as soldiers, state news agency Saba News reported. 

To mark International Children's Day, Al-Eryani said: “We remember tens-of-thousands of Yemeni children that the militia has recruited, brainwashed their minds with sectarian terrorist ideology, subjected them to military training and deployed them to the frontlines as a service to the Iranian regime.”

Al-Eryani noted the Houthis have replaced mainstream education with “radicalization courses” imposed on “hundreds-of-thousands of children” to push them into battlefields.

He called on the international community to hold leaders and members of the group accountable and to prosecute them in international courts as war criminals.