DUBAI: A Yemeni mother in Houthi rebel custody is waiting to be put to death over allegations she spied for the United Arab Emirates, rights group Amnesty International said on Thursday.
A court in rebel-held capital Sanaa handed down the death penalty to 22-year-old Asmaa Al-Omeissy and two men on charges of "aiding an enemy country" after their enforced disappearance and months of torture, Amnesty said.
Yemeni activists and lawyers say they believe this is the first time a woman has been sentenced to death in a "state security" case, according to Amnesty.
Amnesty said the latest sentencing was "part of a wider pattern of the Houthis using the judiciary to settle political scores”.
The rebel-run Saba News Agency said the Specialised Criminal Court sentenced Omeissy, Saeed Al-Ruwaished and Ahmed Bawazeer to death on Jan 30.
They were found guilty of "communication and aiding the Arab alliance, which resulted in facilitating the targeting and seizure of strategic sites in Yemen.”
They were also found guilty of "establishing an espionage network and recruiting agents to work on behalf of the United Arab Emirates", Saba said.
Omeissy's 50-year-old father Matir received a 15-year prison sentence for an "indecent act" - allowing his daughter to be in the same car as the male defendants.
Asmaa, who has two children, is the only one of the three still in custody.
The men were able to pay bail and flee to parts of Yemen not controlled by the rebels, Amnesty said, accusing the Huthis of engaging in "extortion".
The UAE, for which the defendants are accused of spying, is a pillar of the Saudi-led Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 with the aim of rolling back rebel gains and restoring the internationally recognised government.
The Iran-backed Houthis have cracked down in Sanaa in recent months, gunning down one-time ally Ali Abdullah Saleh and cracking down on opponents.
Journalists and activists have previously been sentenced to death by Houthi-run courts on charges of spying for Saudi Arabia.
Amnesty said the defendants in the latest case were subjected to "enforced disappearance, cut off from the outside world, and secretly moved from one facility to the other.
"They were held in squalor in pre-trial detention for months, extorted for money, subjected to continuous humiliation and extreme physical abuse, and denied basic rights including legal counsel and family visits.”
Amnesty has called for the sentences to be "quashed without delay".
Houthis sentence young Yemeni mother to death for ‘spying’
Houthis sentence young Yemeni mother to death for ‘spying’
WEF panel told grassroots aid workers keep Sudan afloat even as conflict puts them at risk
- Speakers warned that without urgent action to protect humanitarian access and support local responders, Sudan’s crisis will continue to deepen and destabilize the wider region
LONDON: Grassroots Sudanese aid groups are filling critical humanitarian gaps left by limited international access, but their volunteers are facing hunger, arrest and deadly risks as the conflict enters its fourth year, speakers warned at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.
More than 20 million people in Sudan are facing acute hunger, while more than 11 million have been displaced, making it the largest displacement crisis in the world. As fighting continues and access for international agencies tightens, community-led networks have become a primary lifeline for civilians across the country.
“We need to strengthen local capacity and support community-led solutions like Emergency Response Rooms and mutual aid groups, with a more localized and decolonized humanitarian response,” said Hanin Ahmed, a Sudanese activist and Emergency Response Room leader.
Ahmed described how volunteers were delivering food, medical support and protection services in areas that international organizations struggled to reach. However, she warned that these efforts came at immense personal cost.
Volunteers are often displaced themselves, facing food insecurity, arrest, kidnapping, and in some cases, killing by the warring parties. Famine, she said, was no longer confined to traditionally affected regions.
“There is famine not only in Darfur, but also in Khartoum, the capital,” Ahmed told the panel, pointing to widespread unemployment, disease outbreaks, and rising cases of gender-based violence across multiple states.
Despite the scale of the crisis, Ahmed emphasized that Sudanese communities retained both the willingness and capacity to recover if adequately supported.
“Sudanese people are willing to resolve this war if supported,” she said.
Panelists stressed that hunger in Sudan was not driven by a lack of aid, but by deliberate barriers to its delivery.
“The story of Sudan’s war is a story of impunity,” said David Miliband, president and chief executive officer of the International Rescue Committee.
“To tackle impunity, we need to challenge restrictions on humanitarian access, end sieges, and address the profiteering that fuels the conflict,” he added.
Miliband said that while humanitarian funding remained critically low, access constraints were the primary factor preventing life-saving assistance from reaching civilians. Only 28 percent of the UN humanitarian appeal for Sudan had been funded, he said, compounding the effects of obstruction on the ground.
Meanwhile, where assistance was available, needs continued to outstrip capacity. Barham Salih, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, described visiting refugee-hosting areas along Sudan’s borders, where people arrived after experiencing extreme violence, deprivation and trauma.
“Ten liters of water per person per day is far below emergency standards,” Salih said.
“Only 16 percent of those who need mental health support are receiving it, and only one in three families in need of shelter actually have access,” he added.
Salih stressed that statistics failed to capture the scale of human suffering. “Behind every number is a human life,” he said, recounting testimonies of abuse, rape and killings from refugees who had crossed the border only hours earlier.
As humanitarian systems inside Sudan continue to falter, the consequences are increasingly felt beyond its borders.
Neighboring countries including Chad, Kenya, Egypt and Uganda are hosting large numbers of Sudanese refugees despite limited infrastructure and resources.
“What starts in Sudan does not stay in Sudan,” Miliband said. “This is a crisis with regional implications.”
While host governments have kept borders open and adopted inclusive policies that allow refugees access to services and livelihoods, panelists warned that generosity alone could not sustain the response without stronger international support.
The discussion in Davos highlighted that Sudan’s humanitarian crisis was shaped not by a lack of solutions, but by who is allowed to deliver aid, where, and under what conditions.
