Amnesty International: UAE’s crimes in Yemen could amount to war crimes

SANAA, July 12 (YPA) – Amnesty International accused the United Arab Emirates occupation forces and its allied forces of torturing detainees at a network of secret prisons in southern Yemen, calling for a probe into these violations that could amount to war crimes.

In a statement on Thursday obtained by Yemen Press Agency, the organization said that dozens of people had been subjected to “enforced disappearance” after a “campaign of arbitrary arrests” by the UAE-backed troops.

“The UAE, operating in shadowy conditions in southern Yemen, appears to have created a parallel security structure outside the law, where egregious violations continue to go unchecked,” Amnesty’s Tirana Hassan said in a new report on Wednesday.

Amnesty International explained that an investigation conducted between March 2016 and May 2018 in the provinces of Aden, Lahij, Abyan, Shabwah and Hadramawt in southern Yemen, documented the use widespread torture and other forms of ill-treatment in Yemeni and Emiratis secret detention centers, including beatings, electric shocks and sexual violence.

E.M