AL-MUKALLA: The Iran-backed Houthis have released a “sick” member of the religious minority Bahai sect, one of 17 held by the Houthis for almost two months. The Bahai International Community said the Houthis released a severely ill Bahai member named Ahmed Al-Malahi and demanded that international pressure be increased on the militia until they free the others. “Ahmed Al-Malahi, who is gravely ailing, was released as a result of international pressure,” the community said on Twitter on Wednesday. “We continue to demand that all governments and international organizations demand the immediate and unconditional release of all Yemeni Bahais,” it added. On May 25, armed and masked Houthis stormed a gathering of Bahai followers in Sanaa and detained them, including five women. The Houthis have rejected all local and international demands to release them and to cease persecuting religious minorities and dissidents in areas they control. The Houthis accused the Bahais of being Jewish and American stooges attempting to subvert Islam and Yemen’s religious norms. International rights organizations have expressed concern that the imprisoned Bahais may face death or deportation, citing the militia’s history of repressive treatment of dissidents. The Houthis have not acknowledged holding any Bahais in captivity. Yemeni activists and local media, meanwhile, reported that a Yemeni soldier seized by the Houthis from the battlefield in 2019 in the province of Saada died in a Houthi detention facility in Sanaa due to torture and medical neglect. The Houthis captured Faisal Abdul Aziz Abu Ras and dozens of government soldiers on the battlefield in Saada’s Ketaf in 2019 and have prevented their families from communicating with them ever since. Al-Masdar Online news site reported that the Houthis recently informed Abu Ras’s family that he had a “sudden illness” and died in the hospital a day after being admitted. Many Yemenis, however, believe that the soldier was brutally tortured while in detention, just like dozens of other prisoners of war and abducted civilians who have died in detention or in the days after returning home. The governor of Saada, Hadi Tarshan, told Arab News on Thursday that the Houthis are refusing to provide information about the captured soldiers in Saada, pleading with international mediators and the UN to assist in their release. “We appeal to the UN envoy to Yemen, humanitarian organizations, and the international community to exert pressure on the Houthi group to disclose the fate of prisoners and abductees who have been in their custody for years and whose families do not know what happened to them,” Tarshan said.