New Houthi Billboards Reveal over 1,000 Fighters Killed in Ma’ain District

The Iran-backed Houthi militias in Yemen have set up a photo exhibition honoring those who died in battle, revealing that over 1,000 recruits were killed from a single district in Sanaa. This prompted many Yemeni families to demand that the Houthis disclose the fate of their relatives, who were drafted and deployed to front lines in recent months.

Droves of families in Sanaa’s second largest district, Ma’ain, have accused the militias of kidnapping youths and minors, indoctrinating them through a sectarian program and then sending them off to frontlines where they are used as cannon fodder.

The accusation was made after dozens of families whose children have disappeared were stunned by the portraits Houthis hanged around a parliament building under construction to commemorate those killed in battle, Sanaa-based sources told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Houthis have erected around 176 billboards that collectively display the portraits of around 1,060 deceased fighters, most of whom were youths hailing from Ma’ain’s three main neighborhoods.

Hammoud Abad, who serves as a senior Houthi administrator in Sanaa, had inaugurated another permanent exhibition dedicated to the group’s Sanaa “martyrs” in early January.

In Ma’ain, Yemeni families are complaining against the Houthis’ continued targeting of youths and minors for recruitment. They accuse coup militias of deceiving and brainwashing their children to use them to implement their war agenda.

Undeterred by public discontent, Houthis are still seeking to draft even more youths to their ranks, sources confirmed.

Most of the youth and child soldiers whose portraits have been hung up in the exhibitions did not join the fight because of their convictions, but because they were forced to undergo recruitment and indoctrination methods adopted by Houthis, sources explained.

Residents in Sanaa say that the group is currently carrying out large field recruitment campaigns with the aim of attracting new fighters, most of them youth and children.