Recently released hostages have reported that the Houthis had turned a number of homes they had confiscated from oppositionists in Sana'a into detention centers for opponents, after the group's main prisons were filled with hostages and captives from various segments of Yemeni society, and they estimated that there were thousands in these house-turned prisons.

Released detainees were quoted during meetings with activists in Houthi-free parts of Yemen as saying that the homes confiscated by the Houthis and owned by Yemeni officials, politicians, opponents, merchants, and parliamentarians had become prisons to accommodate the large numbers of those arrested during the past two months, most of whom were arrested on charges of preparing to celebrate the anniversary of the 26 September Revolution, which commemorates  overthrowing the ancestors of Houthis in the north of the country.