Underage martyrs : child soldiers in Yemen
In Yemen, families send their children to so-called summer camps. There, adolescents are given combat training and taught why they should fight for God. Both government forces and Houthi rebels use child soldiers. By Ahmed Imran and Emad Hassan
After attending several of the so-called summer camps , Samir was filled with an urgent desire to fight on the Houthi side in Yemen s civil war.
During the camp training sessions, the 15-year-old local had heard Houthi insurgents explain their yearslong fight against the official Yemeni government from their perspective. Additionally, religious teachers had imparted the ideology behind what they saw as a holy mission, or jihad, and talked about why they were fighting to protect their homeland. God approved of their fight against the internationally-recognised Yemeni government, they said.