September Net

By: Hitham Alshehab

Since when I was behind bars in a jail belong to Houthi militias in Sana’a, my mind has been engaged in a deep thinking about INGOs roles in serving Houthi agendas.

In short, what are the key reasons that making INGOs offering obedience and proving love and loyalty to the Houthis.

I am not here to make judgments or fabricate around charges! I know what I’m saying.

Houthi utilizing of assistance…. Another story…

The organizations are providing some assistance to Houthis like detergents, door locks, water filters, blankets, medications, pajamas and sweepers.

All these assistance being handled by Houthi as a “war effort”, (levies go to pockets of Houthi leaders) such as pajamas and medications others being sold in the markets such as blankets and detergents..

Also sweepers weren’t used for cleaning, but for beating us, happened to us in the Houthi prisons called Political Security, Revolution and Habrah laid in Sana’a.

We heard about ICRC, but we didn’t meet their members once we were beaten in the prison.

One day we were in prison, heard the noise of feet, and see darkness in broad daylight.

We wondered about the reason, after that we knew that there were visitors belong to the ICRC checking locks that had become unusable and they had pledged to change them.

The aim of Houthi turning lights off was to draw the attention of the ICRC delegation that they are running out of diesel to bring more support.

In the Central Prison in Sana’a, the organizations provided large amounts of money to build more than a three-storey prison( basements and two floors) with more than 60 cells, each cell with 70-130 people.

As usual, Houthi used and exploited prisoners in construction, welding, herring, talys, electricity and plumbing.

I still remember when one of the prisoners told me, “We are idiots, we build prisons, and they get us into them.”

The walls are filled with chaotic programs in order to mobilize and change the convictions of prisoners to engage them in its fighting ranks.

Have the ICRC’s tasks changed?

I will return to the ICRC, I am a journalist and my colleagues have been kidnapped and forcibly abducted and prevented from communicating with our families for a few months.

On the past, I read about ICRIC duties towards war victims, but i never seen its role in enabling us to contact with our families.

Also, providing medical care to the victims, are core parts of ICRC work, but no way for five and a half years, unless repairing the locks of the cells!