A/HRC/42/CRP.1 recruited by the Security Belt and the Giants Brigades – were used in combat roles throughout the military campaign in al-Hudaydah in 2018. According to the information gathered by the Group of Experts, five died and five others were injured. Among the five children killed, one of them had been recruited at the age of 16; he was about to go back home at the end of December 2018 as he had received his salary and the parties had agreed to the ceasefire. The child’s father received his son’s dead body on 24 December with a 23millimetre gunshot wound in his stomach. The father told the Group of Experts about this experience:1054 “[My son] was a dead body... The 10th Brigade brought him to the hospital and I collapsed when the officer said to me “We are from God and to God we return...” I inspected the body. He had been shot – a 23 mm bullet was in his abdomen and shaved out all his organs to the excrement (outside his stomach), it was 24 December 2018 … They were only able to recover the bodies on the third day, on 23 December and only after the coalition had intensified the airstrikes. He informed me my son had died because of the bleeding and lack of attention. My son’s fault was that he was born in a backward country, a country that does not know the value of children and does not respect their feelings. He was born in a country with militias and corrupt government.” 678. Three soldiers interviewed who were recruited as children at the age of 14, 15 and 17 years by the Security Belt and the Giants Brigades stated that they had taken part in the offensive in Mokha and subsequently in the al-Hudaydah offensive.1055 One of the interviewees stated: “I never imagined that I would join the armed forces or the military. My dream was to become a teacher… When the Houthis fell, I decided to look for a job in any way to help my family with the expenses of the house. Prices went up and my father's salary was no longer enough. At the beginning of 2016… I decided to get enrolled, and my relatives helped me since most of them are in the military. I was almost 15 years old. I joined the military and I went to the training in Aden governorate for about 4 months.”1056 679. One of the victims, recruited in Abyan at the age of 15, explained his recruitment had been handled mostly by a person in the village in charge of those matters (no name provided), but he was also ‘talked into joining the forces’ by friends and relatives. The child was taken directly to the frontline. He remembers that because it was ‘his first battle’ and he was confronted with many deaths.1057 680. The Group of Experts interviewed three witnesses who reported on the recruitment of a 14-year-old boy by the Shabwah Elite Forces in Shabwah in September 2018 as part of a conscription campaign. The child was killed in January 2019 while raiding a village in alHajar, Shabwah Governorate. Sources reported that at least four other children under 16 years’ old were recruited by the Shabwah Elite Forces in January 2019.1058 681. In February 2019 a 17-year-old boy, recruited earlier in 2018 in Ta’izz, was killed by a landmine near the northern border between Yemen and Saudi Arabia. His family told the Group of Experts he had been recruited through the Resistance/ Yemeni armed forces, whom he joined from al-Hawban.1059 The family informed the Group of Experts that the boy’s identity card clearly showed his age. Other sources informed the Group of Experts that the Yemeni armed forces verify identity cards as well as birth certificates .1060 1054 Testimony from a source; identity obscured for protection reasons. Confidential Sources on File. 1056 Confidential Sources on File. 1057 Confidential Sources on File. 1058 Confidential Sources on File. 1059 Confidential Sources on File. 1060 Confidential Sources on File. 1055 163