Abductees’ Mothers Association has received 3844 reports of enforced disappearance cases since it was founded in April, 2016. 128 abductees are still forcibly hidden until today. Some families have no idea of their abducted relatives’ whereabouts. Others do not know if their relatives are alive or dead.
Enforced disappearance is considered a grieve violation where the abductee is subjected to psychological and physical torture during disappearance time. Enforced disappearance is usually associated by a series of different violations of human rights including; storming, searching, and plundering houses with no warrants, and terrorizing families during the search and abduction. Families are regularly psychologically pressured and financially extorted in order to know as little as the whereabouts of their relatives. Enforced disappearance durations vary from and abductee to another, where it lasts as long as six months in average. Some abductees intermittently go through enforced disappearance during their detention period where they are transferred to secret detention centers and prevented from any mean of family contact. Enforced disappearance is classified as a crime against humanity, according to article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Since many different violations are committed simultaneously, enforced disappearance is referred to as cumulative violations of human rights and continues crime as long as there is no definite information of the victim’s fate or whereabouts.
Most often, abductees are hidden at secret detention centers such as residential houses, and governmental and non-governmental establishments. According to the statements of the released individuals, who were either hidden by Houthi armed group or security and military organizations, secret detention centers do not have the basic needs for human life, where abductees are provided with a single meal a day which consists of rotten bread and a little bit of awfully cooked food, and are just allowed to use toilets once a day for only two minutes. Enforced disappearance victims are regularly subjected to brutal torture which has resulted in the death of many abductees.
In its many statements, Abductees’ Mothers Association has demanded and called to prevent and stop all kind of human rights violations, including enforced disappearance which has thousands of victims all over Yemen. The association has repeatedly called upon all parties to grant the victims their rightful human rights, and to protect their families from different types of violations and extortion.