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25 May 2016

Yemen: Pediatrician Released After 10 Months of Enforced Disappearance at the Hands of the Houthi-Saleh Coalition

After 10 months of enforced disappearance, torture and ill-treatment, Dr Abdelkader Al Guneid, a pediatrician and professor at Taiz University, was finally released the by Houthi-Saleh Coalition on 21 May 2016.

The 66-year-old prominent human rights activist had been arrested on 5 August 2015 by armed men in civilian clothes who had broken into his home and taken him away barefoot.


According to his relatives, Dr Al Guneid was detained in the capital Sana'a for the past five months in a small cell that was unfit for living and received no sunlight; he was severely malnourished at the time of his release.


In October 2015, Alkarama seized the United Nations Working Groups on Enforced Disappearances and Arbitrary Detention – the WGEID and WGAD – asking the two Special Procedures to request that the Houthi-Saleh Coalition release Dr Al Guneid.


Alkarama deplores the deteriorating situation in Yemen and the widespread practice of enforced disappearances. The organisation further reminds all those involved in the Yemeni conflict that International Humanitarian Law (IHL) apply to all parties to the conflict, state as well as non-state actors.

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