Saudi-led coalition militias executed, raped, tortured African refugees in Aden, HRW says

SANAA, April 18 (YPA) – Human Right Watch accused Bin Daghr’s authorities backed by the Saudi-led coalition and UAE occupation forces of torturing and raping African refugees seeking political asylum in Yemen’s southern port city of Aden.

African migrants and asylum seekers in Yemen have been executed, raped and tortured in detention by UAE-backed forces in Aden, Human Rights Watch and the UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Wednesday in a statement.

“Guards at the migrant detention center in Aden have brutally beaten men, raped women, and boys, and sent hundreds out to sea in overloaded boats,” said Bill Frelick, refugee rights director at HRW.

Migrants held at the Buraika detention facility in use since early 2017 were denied refugee protection and often deported en masse into rough seas, according to HRW.

It said Interior Ministry loyal to Saudi-led coalition had responded to an HRW inquiry by saying they had dismissed the center’s commander and begun transferring migrants to another location.

The group said in its statement late on Tuesday that the center was under coalition-backed authorities’ control, but that migrants were being arrested and taken there by forces backed by the UAE, which is a major component of a Saudi-led coalition that has intervened in Yemen’s civil war since 2015.

Emirates-backed Security Belt forces were charged with “rounding up and transporting migrants and displaced people to the detention center”.

Last year, more than 87,000 people arrived in Yemen from the Horn of Africa, according to UNHCR.

Emad