An Indian family’s fight to save this mother from execution in war-torn Yemen

Nimisha Priya, a nurse and mother, has been on death row in Yemen since 2020. (Member of Save Nimisha Priya Action council via CNN Newsource)

Relatives of an Indian nurse on death row in war-torn Yemen are racing against time to commute her death sentence, in a case that has gripped India’s media.

Nimisha Priya was sentenced to death for the murder of her former business partner, a Yemeni national, whose body was discovered in a water tank in 2017.

Her execution was initially scheduled for Wednesday, but Indian government sources said on Tuesday she had been given a last minute reprieve.

She was given the death penalty by a court in capital Sanaa in 2020 and her family has been fighting for her release since, complicated by the lack of formal ties between New Delhi and the Houthis, who have controlled the city since the country’s civil war broke out in 2014.

India’s media has devoted significant coverage to the case and human rights groups have called on the Houthis not to carry it out.

Amnesty International on Monday urged the Houthis to “establish a moratorium on all executions and commute (Priya’s) and all existing death sentences as first steps.”

It added: “The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.”

Priya’s mother Prema Kumari, a domestic labourer from Kerala, who sold her home to fund her daughter’s legal fees, has been in Yemen for more than one year to facilitate negotiations for her release.

She last saw Priya on June 18, she told CNN. “She looked tense,” Kumar said through tears.

In accordance with Yemen’s Islamic laws, Priya could be given clemency if the victim’s family pardon her and accept her family’s donation of “diyah”, often dubbed blood money, according to Samuel Joseph, a social worker assisting her family in the case.

“I am optimistic,” said Joseph, an Indian who has lived in Yemen since 1999.

“I’m spiriting the efforts here, and by god’s grace, we got people who are helping. The government of India is directly involved and there’s nothing more I can say at this point of time,” he told CNN.

The Indian government sources said Tuesday the government has “made concerted efforts in recent days to seek more time for the family of Ms. Nimishapriya to reach a mutually agreeable solution with the other party.”

“Despite the sensitivities involved, Indian officials have been in regular touch with the local jail authorities and the prosecutor’s office, leading to securing this postponement.”

Priya allegedly injected her business partner with a fatal overdose of sedatives, Joseph said. Her family maintain she was acting in self-defense and that her business partner was abusive and kept her passport from her after the country’s civil war broke out.

Her trial was held in Arabic and she was not provided with a translator, Joseph said.

A group of activists and lawyers founded the Save Nimisha Priya Action Council in 2020 to raise money for Priya’s release and negotiate with the victim’s family.

“Negotiations have been a challenge,” said Rafeek Ravuthar, an activist and member of the council. “The reality is that there is no Indian embassy, there is no mission in this country.”

Rafeeq said about five million rupees (nearly US$58,000) has been raised so far.

In recent days, politicians from her home state of Kerala have requested India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene and help secure Priya’s release.

“Considering the fact this is a case deserving sympathy, I appeal to the Hon’ble Prime Minister to take up the matter,” Kerala’s chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan wrote in a letter to Modi.

In February, Kirti Vardhan Singh, India’s Minister of State for External Affairs told the upper house of parliament that the government “accords the highest priority for the welfare of Indians abroad and provides all possible support to those who fall in distress including in the instant case.”

He added: “Government of India is providing all possible assistance in the case. The matter regarding any consideration towards the release of Ms. Nimisha Priya is between the family of the deceased and Ms. Nimisha Priya’s family.”

CNN has contacted India’s foreign ministry for comment.

Move to Yemen

Priya first arrived in Yemen in 2008, joining the ranks of more than two million people from Kerala who have sought better livelihoods across the Middle East.

She found work as a nurse in a local hospital, nurturing hopes of establishing her own clinic and building a more secure future for her young daughter and husband, according to campaigners from the Save Nimisha Priya Council. Yemeni regulations, however, required foreign nationals to partner with a local to open a business.

With the support of her husband, Priya borrowed from family and friends and in 2014 opened a clinic in Sanaa.

“We lived a normal happy married life,” her husband Tomy Thomas told CNN. “My wife was very loving, hardworking and faithful in all that she did.”

But her aspirations were soon overshadowed by the political conflict and turmoil that has beset Yemen for decades.

That same year, Houthi rebels seized the capital, ousting the internationally recognized Saudi-backed government. By 2015, the unrest had escalated into a devastating civil war, leaving the country fractured and unstable.

For foreign nationals, the deteriorating security situation made Yemen an increasingly perilous place to live and work. Many chose to evacuate, but Priya decided to remain. Those supporting her family say that she stayed on, determined to salvage the life and business she had worked hard to build.

India does not maintain formal diplomatic relations with the Houthis, nor does it have an operational embassy in Yemen. All consular and diplomatic affairs related to the country are instead handled through the Indian Embassy in Djibouti, across the Red Sea.

CNN has contacted the Indian embassy in Djibouti.

For those working to save Priya, that meant navigating complex communication channels and facing additional hurdles in seeking help, legal aid, or protection while stranded in a nation still wracked by conflict and instability.

Yemen was among the top five countries in 2024 with the highest number of executions, according to Amnesty International.

Amnesty said it confirmed the Houthis carried out at least one execution in areas they control in 2024 but added that it was possible more took place.

Priya’s mother, Kumari, said she was “grateful for everyone’s support,” adding she is happy has been able to see Priya over the course of this year.

Priya’s husband and daughter remain in Kerala, hopeful for her release.

“My wife is very good, she is very loving,” Thomas said. “That is the sole reason I am with her, supporting her and will do so till the end.”

By Rhea Mogul, CNN