Aden – Yemen

Nader (13 years old) – a child of Sheikh Othman’s in Aden, southern Yemen, controlled by the transitional forces called the Security Belt – did not know that the road he took at dawn every day to go to the mosque for prayers would be taken in horror back and forth by his family to search for him or get anything leads to him.

Nader, who belongs to a family of northern descent, was subjected to many harassment, accusations and threats by one of the armed groups because of his affiliation after the war events of the 2015, but the matter did not stop on that!

The military crews raided Nader neighborhood at dawn on March 13, 2020 and took him for no reason by forcing, they put him inside a bus after tying his hands and preventing him from talking. The child says, ” I was not alone on the bus. There were a lot of detainees!”

The bus stopped in Al-Nasr stadium near the neighborhood, without explaining why the children were arrested or abducted, and there the detainees’ eyes were closed and they were taken to an unknown location.

” I was so scared “, this is how the child has expressed his feelings, which continue to be with his mind whenever recalling the situation, reminding him about the dark cell in which he was held for a whole day, investigating with him the next day and trying to force him to confess a crime which he does not know anything about it except knowing that they wanted him to confess that they were murderers, thugs and criminals. Despite his miserable attempts to convince them that he was going to pray and he did not commit a crime. But they sent him back to the dark cell to complete his second day more panic.

On the third day, Nader was transported by car, with eyes closed, and he was thrown into a street. They then fled in the same car, then he found himself on Zahrat Al-Khalil Street, about 150 metres from his house, to go the distance running to his house in a very bad psychological state!

The child’s family continued to worry about him despite his return, as they interrogated him * whether he was subjected to violence or abuse during his abduction and detention, but he keeps silent, his mind becomes distracted, confused and merely shaking his head right and left to reassure them slightly.

As for his elder brother, Ameen still remembers the sounds of bullets of clashes, which he heard when the abduction of his brother happened by armed individuals, who he then described them as masked armed individuals wearing security belt uniforms and boarding military crews and security belt vehicles.

His brother, who kept looking for him from the street to the stadium to the camp after being informed that he had been taken there, he returned home disappointed after being denied access to him on the pretext that it was security measures.

Nader still suffering from the consequences of the incident. He refuses to talk to anyone and refrains from going out of the house at all, which has put his family in a cycle of fear and new concern for their child’s mental and physical health, and fears of repeating the same incident for his fraternity at home.

Abduction and concealment is one of the six grave violations of children’s rights during armed conflict criminalized by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and international laws, in which the community, decision makers and human rights defenders must seek to counter by reporting abductions and disappearances and providing observers with evidence and testimony that can access justice and redress for victims.

Civil society and people must raise their children’s awareness of the dangers of being in neighborhoods overcrowded with militants and military kits and the way to treat raids and abductions as precautionary measures that enable parents to reach them quickly.

An Arabic copy can be found at: