![Detainees wait at prison yard before their release at Central Prison in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, on September 30, 2019. [Mohammed Hamoud - Anadolu Agency]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/20190930_2_38489961_48051433.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1)
Around 20,000 people are being held in hundreds of prisons in Yemen in areas occupied by the Houthi, Anadolu reported.
The information was disclosed during an online symposium organised by a human rights coalition, Yemen’s official Saba news agency reported.
Mutahar Al-Badhiji, executive director of the Yemeni Coalition to Monitor Human Rights Violations (Rasd), said during the symposium that Yemen has gone through its worst humanitarian crisis during the past year and a half due to the systematic violations of the Houthi militias.
Murad al-Garati, president of the Temkin development and human rights organisation, said roughly 20,000 people are being held in 790 official and informal prisons under Houthi control.
He added that the Houthis have recruited 7,000 child soldiers and are responsible for planting landmines in various cities that have killed 6,000 people.
All parties to the Yemen conflict have been accused of abusing civilians and operating mass prisons. In the south, UAE-backed forces have been found to have a network of secret prisons and a “parallel security structure” according to Amnesty International.
READ: EU ‘concerned’ about rise in number of child victims of war in Yemen