Yemeni activists have accused the Houthi militias of establishing two training camps to recruit African migrants who arrive in Yemen, send them to battlefronts, and use them for intelligence tasks and contraband smuggling.

This coincides with ongoing campaigns by the Houthi preventive security apparatus to track and chase African migrants in Saadah. These campaigns have resulted in the kidnapping of 2,288 persons in various regions in the province as per the announcement of the group’s security media center.

Yemeni journalist and activist Fares al-Humairi stated that the militias have created two training camps, one in Saadah and another in the west of the Abs district of Hajjah governorate.

In a Facebook post, the Yemeni activist noted there were ties between the Houthis and smuggling networks that are using border regions in Saadah (the stronghold of the group) to smuggle people, the khat plant, and contraband to neighboring countries under direct supervision by militia leaders.

Humairi added that the group financially rewards African refugees who have carried out missions including smuggling contraband.

He further accused the militias of supplying the migrants with weapons.

Through “organized” operations, the militias are sending African migrants, including women and children, to border regions in Saadah and Hajjah, and forcing them to carry out dangerous tasks, Humairi added.

The insurgents’ practices against African refugees coincided with new accusations by the Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedoms to the Houthis of forcibly disappearing around 2,406 Yemenis of various age categories in addition to 382 African refugees in 17 provinces between January 1, 2017 and mid-2023.

Yemen is a transit point to thousands of Africans coming from the African eastern coast and who wish to move to the neighboring Gulf countries. This makes them subject to violence and exploitation by the Houthis. Most of them face all kinds of blackmail, according to rights sources and international reports.

Roughly 280,000 refugees from Africa live in Yemen. Most are from Somalia and Ethiopia, according to previous UN estimates.

Reports say thousands of African migrants in the insurgent-ruled areas are subject to systematic liquidation, especially those who refuse to get involved in the recruitment or smuggling.

In May, Houthis opened an illegal center for African migrants in the group’s stronghold in Saadah without any coordination with international organizations that defend refugee rights.

This came amid the arrival of 41,000 African refugees and migrants to Yemen in the first quarter of the current year, according to the Mixed Migration Center.

Local sources in Saadah told Asharq Al-Awsat that the militias seek to gather thousands of African refugees to force them into intensive mobilization courses and then get them involved in contraband smuggling and placing them on the battlefronts.