The EURO-MEDITERRANEAN HUMAN RIGHTS MONITOR said it is following with great concern reports talk about dozens of Yamani civilians are illegally detained or are forcibly disappeared by the Houthi group, in a violation that can be added to a long series of human rights violations in Yemen.

In its statement issued on Sunday, the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Monitor said that most of the arrests processes happened during the passage of civilians returning from Aden to Sana'a at security checkpoints controlled by Houthi gunmen. And according to information gathered, the number of detainees during the current month reached 300 people, and most of these detainees were transferred to prisons in Dhamar and Taiz.

Thousands of Yemenis fled Aden city as a result of fighting between the UAE-backed security belt militia and government forces to control of the interim capital Aden at the end of the last August.

According to information documented by the Euro-Mediterranean Monitor, about 3,163 people have been displaced from Aden, in addition to 1,034 families from various northern governorates after they lost their homes and property, explaining that international parties and the United Nations did not provide sheltering centers for fugitives or any supplies that enable them to start a new life.

Quoting from identical sources, the International Monitor for Human Rights said that the Yemeni journalist Ihab al-Shawafi was among the detainees, where al-Shawafi left Aden on August 29, and disappeared completely when he arrived in the area of Hawban east of Taiz on his way to his home in Sanaa.

And according to the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate, al-Shawwafi was arrested by a security checkpoint belonging to the Houthi group east of Taiz, where he was arrested and taken to an unknown destination.

The Euro-Mediterranean Monitor said that processes of arrests and abductions in Sana'a, Lahj, al-Dali' and Dhamar are now taking place based on identity, adding to the suffering of civilians and their families with the increase of news report that the forces that detain these people demand financial ransom for their release.

Yemeni activists in Sanaa had earlier uncovered that the Houthi officials made a condition of paying 700,000 riyals (1,300 US dollars) in ransom for their release.

On the other hand, the Euro-Mediterranean Monitor called on the Houthi group to reveal the fate of 455 civilians arrested between September 2014 and December 2018.

According to the International Monitor for Human Rights, the families of the detainees fear for the fate of their sons with the spread of news talk about their sons subjecting to torture, in addition to the continued prevention of periodic visits guaranteed by international law for the third consecutive month.

During a seminar organized on the sidelines of the 42nd session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, Local human rights organizations had said that 170 Yemeni civilians have died under torture in prisons belonging to the Houthi group, including 9 children, two women and 6 elderly during the past five years.

For five years, the Houthi group has controlled prisons and detention centers in the capital Sana'a, the governorates of Amran, Hajjah, Ibb, al-Bayda, Dhamar, al-Hudaydah and eastern Taiz.

Anas Jarjawi, director of the Middle East and North Africa division in the Euro-Mediterranean Monitor, said that the illegal arrest and detention of civilians without any conviction for violations of international agreements and principles and legal rules that guarantee the most basic litigation rights to any individual, the most important of which are the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Jarjawi explained that as the conflict continues, prisons and detention centers in Yemen are operated away from the judiciary in contravention of the Yemeni Constitution and international conventions and principles, including the standards relating to prisoners and their conditions of detention contained in the 1957 Convention on the Standard Treatment of Prisoners, as well as the 1990 Basic Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners and the Principles for the Protection of Prisoners under any form of imprisonment in 1988.

In its statement, the Euro-Mediterranean Monitor called on the Houthi group to stop immediately the arrest and detention of civilians fleeing the south of the country, to declare the names of detainees and places of detention, and to allow their families to visit them and reassure them, calling at the same time on the international community to work hard to end the detention operations that violate basic human rights standards. And ending the armed conflict in the country that continued for more than four years, which resulted in a difficult humanitarian crisis that has claimed the lives of thousands of Yemenis and threatens the lives of millions of others amid continued siege, starvation and targeting of civilians in different parts of the country.