Section 6: Enforced Disappearance

During 2018, Mwatana documented at least 203 enforced disappearances, including at least 112 incidents that occurred in areas under the control of armed groups loyal to the Arab Coalition and President Abd Rabboh Mansour Hadi, in the governorates of Aden, Al Jawf, Taizz, and Marib. 91 other disappearances took place in areas under the control of the armed group Ansar Allah (Houthis) in the governorates of Al Hudaydah, Taizz, Sana’a, Ibb, and Hajjah.

Hundreds of civilians have suffered from the prolonged horror of enforced disappearance. Often, the parties to the conflict forcibly disappear civilians due to suspected affiliation with opposing groups or due to their political opinions or affiliations. The warring parties have continued to disappear people unchecked throughout the conflict, and the practice has spread as a result. Disappearances affect not just the individual disappeared, but also their families and friends, and the society as a whole, instilling fear and terror.

Legal Framework

An enforced disappearance occurs when authorities take someone into custody and deny holding them or fail to disclose their fate or whereabouts. “Disappeared” people are at greater risk of torture and other ill-treatment, especially when they are detained in informal detention facilities.

Enforced disappearances are also prohibited during conflict. Enforced disappearances violate or threaten to violate a range of rules of customary international humanitarian law applicable in both international and non-international armed conflicts, including the prohibition on arbitrary detention, on torture, on cruel or inhuman treatment and on murder. Parties are required to take steps to prevent disappearances during non-international armed conflicts, including registering those detained, and must take all feasible measures to account for missing people as a result of the conflict and to pride their family members with information on their fate.

Under the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court, the systematic practice of enforced disappearance constitutes a crime against humanity. Hostage taking, seizing or detaining someone and threatening to kill, injure, or continue to detain them to compel a third party to do or abstain from doing something as a condition of release or for the person’s safety, is also a war crime under the Rome Statute.

Yemeni law does not criminalize enforced disappearance as such, nor has the state ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. However, constitutional and legal principles enshrined in the Yemeni constitution regarding basic rights and freedoms, including regarding arbitrary detention and torture, would appear to prohibit the practice. Yemen should ratify the Convention and align domestic law with its protections.

Case Studies

  • In early January 2018, a number of security officers from the “Popular Resistance” forces came on a military vehicle and a Toyota pickup truck and arrested a cleaner (female, 37 years old).

The men took her from work in Medical Center in Al Hazm city in Al Jawf governorate to the Political Security Organization prison in the city. According to witnesses, she was detained on charges of spying for Ansar Allah (Houthis).[1] Her family was unable to visit her and she remains forcibly disappeared until the time of writing the report.

  • On Saturday, 27 January 2018, at about 5 am, unknown men abducted Zakaria Ahmad Muhammad Qassim (55 years old) while on his way to pray the dawn prayer in Al Furqan Masjid in Al Mualla district in Aden governorate.

According to interviews, four armed men on a Hyundai and a Toyota bus blocked Zakaria’s way and forced him to get on the vehicle with them. They fired shots in the air. The two vehicles headed towards the headquarters of the Counter-Terrorism Forces, loyal to the United Arab Emirates, in Al Tawahi district. Zakaria’s son, Yahya (18 years old), said: “We filed a complaint in the morning in the police station about the abduction of my father by armed men, but to no avail. We still do not know where my father is.”[2] Zakaria’s fate remains unknown.

  • On Wednesday, 6 June 2018, at around 6 pm, a group of Ansar Allah (Houthi) men arrested Sameer Adham (31 years old) from a masjid in Mahdhah village in Al Safra’a district of Sa’ada governorate.

Adham’s mother (51 years old) said: “My son told me that he was going to go respond to a call from the Ansar Allah area supervisor for dinner. I encouraged him to go so that we would get a food basket or some financial aid, but, at night, Sameer had not returned. I tried calling him, but his phone was off.”[3] His mother said that someone came to her to tell her that her son had been detained. The person said: “They took Sameer from the village masjid. They took him on a Toyota pickup truck, and they took him to Sa’ada city. They accused him of receiving money from areas under the control of President Hadi.”[4] Sameer’s mother added: “Sameer was a laborer who got a daily wage in a tomato farm, and he was the only breadwinner for our family. They tricked him by saying they wanted to meet for dinner, and I have been torn apart by what happened to him.”[5] He remains forcibly disappeared.

  • On Friday, 10 August 2018, at around 4:30 pm, armed men in civilian clothes from Al Sa’alik Brigade, which is affiliated with President Hadi, abducted “Basheer Khalid” (18 years old, pseudonym) from Al Masbah intersection in Al-Qahira district of Taizz governorate.

According to family members, “Basheer,” who worked as a motorcycle driver in Taizz city, took advantage of a calm period following clashes between different resistance factions between 8 to 12 August 2018 to retrieve some things to meet his family’s  basic needs. The last place he was seen was Al Masbah intersection, where he was asked by two armed men wearing civilian clothes to take them somewhere on his motorcycle, according to an eyewitness.

Basheer’s sister, “Sawsan Khalid” (19 years old, pseudonym) said: “It had been a few hours since Basheer had left from our house, and we started to get worried. I went out with my father to look for him, and we could not find any trace of him. We looked for him in detention centers belonging to the army and the Taizz Command, the 22nd Mechanized Brigade, and even police stations, but we did not find anything.”[6] She added: “I got a call a week after he disappeared, and the caller, who had just been released from detention, told me that he had been detained with my brother and other individuals in a secret prison that was controlled by the Al Sa’alik Brigade. This prison was located in the Public Funds Prosecutor’s Office building.”[7] Basheer remains forcibly disappeared.

The location of 10 August 2018 incident was mistakenly mentioned as “Salah district”.

[1] Mwatana for Human Rights’ interviews with eyewitnesses, 28 and 30 March 2018

[2] Mwatana for Human Rights’ interview with the victim’s sister, 3 October 2018

[3] Mwatana for Human Rights’ interview with the victim’s mother, 19 July 2018

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Mwatana for Human Rights’ interview with the victim’s sister, 29 August 2018

[7] Ibid.