How Many Houses Blown Up by Yemen’s Militant Groups Since 2015?

Militant groups in Yemen have proliferated over the past decade, and they have used force and intimidation to impose their agenda and dominate people.

The groups, including the Ansar Allah (Houthi) group, Daesh, southern separatists and armed militants in Taiz, resorted to several violent ways to silence or get rid of their opponents. Bombing houses was one of the techniques the militants used over the past years.

A recent report by  (ACJ) and (SAM) revealed the number of houses bombed by militant groups in multiple Yemeni provinces. The Houthi group comes first as it has blown up 713 houses since 2015. Al-Baydha has been the most affected province, with 118 cases of house bombings.

The latest house bombing happened nine days ago in Radaa of Al-Baydha, leaving at least 12 people dead and over 20 civilians trapped under the rubble. Houthi authorities confessed that their soldiers acted without receiving directions from the Interior Ministry in Sanaa.

In the absence of the state, coupled with the lack of law enforcement and the presence of the law of the jungle in Yemen, a militant group can decide to blow up a civilian house in the blink of an eye. That is the reason why hundreds of homes have been detonated in Yemen since the civil war broke out in 2015.

The following graph illustrates the number of houses bombed in several Yemeni provinces.