Yemeni civil society groups ask UN Security Council to put civilian protection first
Yemen Herald News 
ADEN, Yemen — A coalition of Yemeni civil society organisations has asked the United Nations Security Council to put the protection of civilians ahead of other business on Yemen.
The groups issued a joint statement on Saturday. Arab News reported it on 26 September. The Yemeni agency Khabar reported it the following day and put the number of signatory organisations at 266.
Neither report names the organisations individually. No convening body is identified in either account.
The statement said the recruitment or use of children in hostilities constitutes a war crime, according to Arab News.
It asked the Security Council to prioritise the protection of civilians, migrants and children, Khabar reported. The organisations also asked for disclosure about people who have disappeared.
Future negotiations should treat human rights and accountability as fundamental pillars, the organisations said.
The statement cited documented cases of child recruitment and of children sent to front lines. It said children had been taken in fighting in Taiz, Marib, al-Jawf and the West Coast area.
The organisations attributed casualty figures to local authorities and to Yemen’s Executive Unit for IDP Camps Management. Those bodies reported that a ballistic missile struck a gathering of displaced people in Raghwan district, in Marib governorate, on 7 September.
Two children were killed and 15 civilians wounded, eight of them children, according to that account. Sixteen houses and three civilian vehicles were damaged.
Other outlets reported the same strike. Arab News, the Lebanese outlet This Is Beirut and the Yemeni site 26 September Net each gave two children killed and 15 wounded.
The Yemeni outlet Yemen Online reported three children killed. 26 September Net described the target as a government complex in Raghwan rather than a shelter for displaced families.
The Houthis have not published an account of the strike. Yemen Herald could not establish which description of the site is accurate.
The statement said a ballistic missile struck the 2 December Hospital in Mokha, on the western coast, on the same day. Arab News reported the same claim.
About 2,183 families had been displaced from Taiz and Hodeidah governorates, the organisations said.
The fighting the statement describes in Taiz began on 4 September, when Houthi forces attacked positions in the western districts of Maqbanah, Mawzaa and Jabal Habashi, Al Jazeera reported. Al Jazeera reported that the governorate had not seen fighting on that scale since 2022.
About 300 families sheltering at the al-Rahabah camp in the Jabal Habashi area left as the front line moved toward them, Al Jazeera said. Families from neighbouring camps and villages also left.
A pro-government fighter, Yahiya Lutf, told Al Jazeera that Houthi forces had tried to cut the road linking Taiz city to the Red Sea coast and had failed. Dozens of fighters were killed on both sides, the report said.
The United Nations has recorded the recruitment of children in Yemen for years. Its most recent detailed country figures, verified in 2021 and published in 2022, listed 225 children recruited or used, 251 children killed and 576 maimed.
The United Nations human rights office has published its own account of the period. Volker Turk, the high commissioner for human rights, said on 24 September that at least 125 civilians had been killed or wounded in Yemen since early August.
His office documented 32 civilian deaths, among them 15 children and three women. It recorded about 125,000 people displaced by the renewed fighting.
The office said it had documented three attacks by Ansar Allah forces on sites for displaced people in Marib governorate, on 7 August, 7 September and 9 September. The second of those dates matches the strike the organisations cite.
“Civilians must never be targeted, and their protection must be the overriding priority,” Turk said.
He said 73 United Nations staff members were being held arbitrarily by Ansar Allah, some of them for many years, and asked for their release. He also asked all parties to allow rapid humanitarian relief and to spare civilian infrastructure.
“The people of Yemen cannot withstand another full-scale conflict,” Turk said.
Yemeni civil society coalitions have timed similar appeals to the General Assembly before. One coalition published a joint statement in September 2020.
Another addressed the 77th General Assembly in September 2022. Oxfam circulated that statement, and the relief information service ReliefWeb carried it.
The accountability machinery the organisations are asking for was narrowed five years ago. The Human Rights Council rejected a resolution to renew the mandate of its Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen in October 2021.
The experts said the vote was a setback for accountability, in a statement issued through the United Nations human rights office. The International Commission of Jurists called the failure a serious blow to accountability.
The humanitarian conditions the organisations describe are set out in the United Nations aid plan for Yemen. The March 2026 humanitarian needs and response plan recorded more than 22 million people in need of assistance.
It put the number of acutely food insecure people at 18.3 million. More than 2.2 million children under five were acutely malnourished, 516,157 of them severely.
The plan counted 5.2 million internally displaced people. It sought 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million of them.
Yemen Herald found no second origin for the figure of 266 signatory organisations. Arab News gave no number for the signatories.
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