Yemen's authorities carried out significant human rights abuses in 2025, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2026.
The Houthis, the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC), and the Yemeni government arbitrarily detained and forcibly disappeared people in areas they controlled, including journalists and human rights defenders. The United States and Israel also carried out attacks that killed hundreds of civilians in Yemen. By the end of 2025, the Houthis were arbitrarily detaining 69 United Nations staff and dozens of civil society staff.
"Arresting humanitarian workers and threatening journalists and civil society will not address the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen," said Niku Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Warring parties should stop targeting activists, journalists, UN staff, and aid workers and instead meet their obligations to fulfill people's rights, including addressing major socioeconomic needs to improve people's lives."
In the 529-page World Report 2026, its 36th edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in more than 100 countries. In his introductory essay, Executive Director Philippe Bolopion writes that breaking the authoritarian wave sweeping the world is the challenge of a generation. With the human rights system under unprecedented threat from the Trump administration and other global powers, Bolopion calls on rights-respecting democracies and civil society to build a strategic alliance to defend fundamental freedoms.
- All warring parties in Yemen have arbitrarily detained, forcibly disappeared, and tortured journalists and media workers throughout the conflict.
- Over the past year and a half, the Houthis have arrested and forcibly disappeared dozens of UN and civil society staff in areas under their control and arbitrarily arrested dozens of others, including for commemorating Yemen's revolution, a national holiday.
- US and Israeli forces killed and injured hundreds of civilians in Yemen and destroyed critical civilian infrastructure in targeted attacks, including on ports and the Sanaa airport. Many of these attacks have most likely amounted to war crimes.
- The Houthis carried out apparently indiscriminate attacks in Israel and on civilian ships in the Red Sea, killing civilians and hitting civilian objects, also most likely amounting to war crimes.
Warring parties should immediately end their use of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance, release all those unjustly detained, and end their unlawful attacks, and regional states should make this an advocacy priority. Warring parties should also abide by their obligations to fulfill the basic needs of the populations living under their control, including access to food and water.
