On the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances: SAM Calls for Revealing the Fate of the Disappeared, Holding Those Responsible Accountable, Providing Justice for Families, and Placing the Issue at the Heart of Any Peace and Transitional Justice Process
Geneva – 30 August 2026
SAM for Rights and Liberties stated that enforced disappearance in Yemen is no longer an exceptional violation associated with a specific phase of the conflict. Instead, after more than a decade of war, it has become part of a broader system of arbitrary detention, incommunicado detention, unlawful prisons, torture, deprivation of basic legal guarantees, and denial of protection under the law.
The organization warned that the continuation of this crime, combined with the absence of a serious process for truth-seeking, accountability, and transitional justice, risks carrying the issue of the disappeared beyond the end of the war and transforming the suffering of their families into a long-term legacy.
On the occasion of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, SAM emphasized that the available figures reveal only part of the scale of the phenomenon. According to the organization’s “Long Absence” report, SAM documented and verified 270 cases of enforced disappearance in the context of the Yemeni conflict. Of these cases, 187 were attributed to the Houthi group, 48 to Security Belt forces, 18 to Saudi forces or forces aligned with them, 11 to forces affiliated with the Yemeni government, and 6 cases to National Resistance forces on the western coast.
This distribution demonstrates that the crime has been committed by multiple parties, although with clearly differing levels of responsibility.
The organization added that these figures do not represent a final count of all forcibly disappeared persons. The “Years of Hell” report (2024) reaffirmed that reaching a comprehensive figure remains impossible due to difficulties accessing many areas, the reluctance of some families to report cases due to fear of retaliation, the existence of multiple authorities controlling detention facilities, and the absence of an independent national body responsible for documenting and verifying all cases of disappearance and missing persons.
Therefore, the documented figures should be considered a minimum number of confirmed cases that could be reached, rather than a complete estimate of the true scale of the crime.
These indicators are consistent with documentation from other Yemeni and international organizations. Human Rights Watch, in joint recommendations submitted for Yemen’s Universal Periodic Review, reported that the Association of Mothers of Abductees documented, between 2019 and 2022, 2,725 cases of arbitrary detention of civilians, 761 cases of enforced disappearance, and 974 cases of torture and other forms of ill-treatment. The report noted that the majority of documented cases of abduction, disappearance, and torture during that period were attributed to the Houthi group.
Human Rights Watch also confirmed in its 2026 World Report that all parties to the conflict, including Houthi forces, the Yemeni government, and UAE-backed forces, have carried out arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture, and other forms of ill-treatment. Hundreds of Yemenis have been held in both official and unofficial detention facilities across the country.
SAM considers this description to highlight the close connection between the widespread practice of enforced disappearance and the existence of multiple detention facilities operating outside judicial oversight.
The Crime Has Not Become a Thing of the Past
SAM stated that recent developments confirm that enforced disappearance is not merely a legacy of the early years of the war.
In a joint statement issued with Human Rights Watch and the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies in June 2026, Amnesty International reported that the Houthis launched a wave of arrests beginning on 31 May 2024, targeting 13 United Nations employees and at least 50 employees of Yemeni and international civil society organizations. Dozens of others were subsequently detained, and several detainees were subjected to enforced disappearance for months.
As of February 2026, 73 United Nations employees and dozens of humanitarian workers remained in detention.
On 10 June 2026, the United Nations confirmed that 73 of its staff members continued to be arbitrarily detained by Houthi de facto authorities. One United Nations employee died while in custody, while some of his colleagues remained held incommunicado.
SAM stressed that the continued detention of individuals without regular contact with their families or lawyers, and without sufficient transparency regarding their location or legal status, increases concerns over their safety and makes revealing their fate and detention conditions an urgent obligation.
The United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has also expressed concern over information regarding an increase in serious violations, including enforced disappearances, during the years of conflict, as well as the involvement of different parties, to varying degrees, in patterns of enforced disappearance and detention outside the protection of the law.
SAM believes that the continued receipt of such allegations by international mechanisms reflects the absence of a comprehensive and independent national approach to addressing this issue.
In February 2026, SAM documented the case of Dr. Ashwaq Suleiman Al-Shumairi, who was arrested from her home in Sana’a on 25 November 2025 without the presentation of a legal warrant or clarification of the reasons for her detention.
Her place of detention remained undisclosed, and she was unable to communicate with her family or a lawyer. SAM considered this case an example of the continued use of enforced disappearance and incommunicado detention against civilians and independent voices.
In Aden, the case of Hatem Ali Jaeem Al-Awlaki remains a stark example of the ongoing nature of this crime. SAM has documented his enforced disappearance since October 2016, and after nearly a decade, his family still has no confirmed information regarding his whereabouts or fate.
The organization considers the continued absence of answers for his family over such a prolonged period to demonstrate not only unlawful detention, but also the collapse of protection, oversight, and accountability mechanisms that should prevent individuals from disappearing within institutions or detention facilities operating outside judicial control.
Illegal Prisons Are Part of the Truth-Seeking Process
SAM emphasized that addressing enforced disappearance cannot be limited to preparing lists of victims’ names. It must also include uncovering the detention system itself:
Who established these detention facilities?
Who managed them?
Who issued arrest and transfer orders?
Who prevented families and lawyers from accessing detainees?
In January 2026, SAM welcomed in principle official directives aimed at identifying illegal detention sites in Aden, Lahj, and Al-Dhale. However, in its statement regarding illegal prisons, the organization stressed that administrative identification alone is insufficient.
It called for an independent judicial investigation into the parties responsible for establishing and operating these facilities, as well as the chains of command and responsibility connected to them.
The findings of an investigation conducted by SAM and the Yemeni Archive regarding detention violations in areas formerly controlled by the Southern Transitional Council demonstrate the scale of the problem.
The investigation noted that Human Rights Watch documented, in June 2017, the existence of 11 unofficial detention sites in Aden and Hadramout, including six locations in Aden alone. Meanwhile, more recent data from the Association of Mothers of Abductees indicates that there may have been as many as 15 illegal detention facilities in Aden by January 2026.
The investigation also reported that Mwatana Organization for Human Rights documented 37 cases of enforced disappearance linked to Al-Wadah Hall in Aden, and six cases of enforced disappearance connected to the Al-Dabbah detention site in Hadramout.
SAM stated that knowing that a person has disappeared is not the end of the documentation process—it is only the beginning.
It is necessary to determine how the person disappeared, where they were detained, who ordered their arrest or transfer, who carried it out, whether they were subjected to torture or died in custody, and where their remains are located if their death is confirmed.
The organization further emphasized that detention records, arrest orders, transfer documents, interrogation records, and death certificates must be preserved as potential evidence and must not be destroyed or tampered with.
The Family Is Also a Victim
SAM stressed that enforced disappearance does not only punish the disappeared individual; it places the family itself within a cycle of violation.
Mothers, fathers, wives, and children spend years moving between prisons, security agencies, prosecutors’ offices, and intermediaries in search of information. Some parents die without ever learning the fate of their children, while children grow up not knowing whether their fathers will ever return.
Beyond psychological suffering, the absence of a family provider often results in the loss of income, accumulated debt, disruption of education, challenges in accessing care, and instability in family life.
These consequences are also recognized by Amnesty International in its discussion of the prolonged nature of enforced disappearance and its impact on relatives and communities.
For this reason, SAM affirmed that the right to truth belongs to both the victim and the family.
Families must not be forced to wait until the end of the war or the completion of a political settlement before knowing whether their loved ones are alive or dead, where they were detained, or what they endured.
The passage of time does not reduce the obligation of authorities and controlling parties to reveal the fate of disappeared persons. Instead, it makes this obligation more urgent due to the increasing risk of losing witnesses, records, and evidence.
In May 2026, SAM welcomed the announcement of an agreement for the exchange of detainees, abductees, and forcibly disappeared persons as an important humanitarian step. However, the organization emphasized that the release of detainees is a right belonging to victims and is not a political favor.
SAM warned against reducing the issue of disappeared persons to a prisoner-exchange framework, as a civilian subjected to enforced disappearance is not a bargaining chip that can be held until a reciprocal deal becomes available.
Revealing a person’s whereabouts and legal status is an independent obligation that must not be linked to political or military negotiations.
The organization further warned that tying the fate of civilians exclusively to exchange agreements could unintentionally give detention and disappearance a bargaining value, encouraging the retention or concealment of individuals for future negotiations.
The fundamental principle must be the immediate termination of unlawful detention, disclosure of the person’s fate, and guaranteeing contact with family members and legal counsel, regardless of whether a negotiation process exists.
SAM emphasized that the appearance of a person before prosecutors or courts after months or years does not erase what they experienced during the period of disappearance.
If an individual is detained, the responsible authority denies their whereabouts or withholds information from their family, prevents access to a lawyer, and removes them from the protection of the law, then their later referral to judicial authorities does not make the previous detention lawful, nor does it eliminate responsibility for the violations committed during that period.
The same applies to release.
The return of a victim to their home does not erase years of disappearance, torture, or deprivation of liberty, nor does it remove the victim’s and their family’s right to truth, investigation, and remedy.
The organization stated that, after more than a decade of war, Yemen still lacks an independent and comprehensive national mechanism with sufficient authority to:
SAM believes that delaying the establishment of such a mechanism until a political settlement is reached risks the loss of further evidence, as witnesses may die, records may be destroyed, detention locations may change, and potential burial sites may be disturbed.
Therefore, SAM calls for the immediate creation of a national truth-seeking framework that includes:
SAM affirmed that it is incorrect to consider transitional justice a project that begins only after the signing of a peace agreement.
Documentation, preservation of evidence, searching for disappeared persons, involving families, and protecting witnesses can all begin during the conflict itself.
Any future transitional justice framework in Yemen must place enforced disappearance among its priorities and combine:
SAM explained that enforced disappearance represents a complex violation of several fundamental rights, including the right to liberty, personal security, protection from torture, and recognition as a person before the law.
The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance establishes an absolute prohibition against this practice. Meanwhile, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court recognizes enforced disappearance as an act that may constitute a crime against humanity when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population, with knowledge of that attack.
The organization expressed regret that Yemen remains, according to the official United Nations treaty status records, outside the states parties to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
SAM believes that Yemen’s accession to the Convention, along with the clear and independent criminalization of enforced disappearance under national legislation, represents two essential steps toward building stronger legal safeguards and providing victims and families with clearer pathways to access truth and justice.
SAM called on the Houthi group, the Yemeni government, and all armed and security forces or formations that operate or have operated detention facilities to immediately and fully disclose:
The organization demanded an end to incommunicado detention, ensuring that detainees are able to maintain regular communication with their families and lawyers, receive medical care, and that anyone held without a legal basis is released immediately or brought without delay before an independent judicial authority in accordance with fair trial guarantees.
SAM further called for the closure of all illegal prisons and detention facilities, the protection and preservation of records related to arrests, transfers, interrogations, detention orders, and deaths in custody.
It also demanded independent and transparent investigations into all cases of enforced disappearance, torture, and deaths occurring in detention, as well as accountability for those responsible, including individuals who issued orders, managed detention facilities, or provided cover for the continuation of violations.
SAM called on the Yemeni government to establish a unified national registry for missing and forcibly disappeared persons and to adopt a legal framework that clearly criminalizes enforced disappearance as an independent and continuing crime.
The organization further urged authorities to guarantee access for the judiciary, prosecutors, and independent oversight bodies to all detention facilities without exception, work toward Yemen’s accession to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, and align national legislation with international standards.
At the same time, SAM called on the United Nations, the Human Rights Council, and states supporting the Yemen peace process to treat the issue of disappeared persons as an independent human rights obligation, rather than a secondary matter within prisoner-exchange arrangements.
It urged the inclusion of clear and measurable indicators regarding disclosure of victims’ fate and the release of detainees in any political process, support for the establishment of an independent mechanism to search for missing persons and preserve evidence, assistance to Yemeni organizations documenting violations, and efforts to restore an independent international mechanism for investigating serious violations and preserving evidence necessary for future accountability.
SAM stated:
“A sustainable peace cannot be built upon secret prisons and unresolved cases of missing persons. A political settlement may succeed in stopping the fighting or reorganizing power, but it will not end the war inside families as long as the question that began at the moment of arrest remains unanswered: Where are they?”
The organization added that more than a decade after the outbreak of the conflict, merely commemorating the occasion and issuing annual solidarity statements is no longer sufficient.
The true measure of progress lies in:
SAM affirmed that enforced disappearance remains an ongoing crime as long as the fate or whereabouts of the victim remain unknown.
Ending this crime does not begin only with ending the war. It begins with revealing the truth, preserving evidence, holding those responsible accountable, providing justice and reparations to victims, and ensuring that the disappearance of human beings never again becomes a tool of security or political control in Yemen.