Abductees face unknown fates in STC prisons in Aden

ADEN, Aug. 26 (YPA) – The journalist, Tariq Tawfiq Hanbala, and four others face an unknown fate for the third day in a row after they were kidnapped by members of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) in the city of Aden, southern Yemen.

Human rights sources in the city reported that Hanbala’s family did not obtain any information about the presence of journalist Hanbala and four others from his family, including two of his brothers, “Waed and Awam,” since the moment they were kidnapped last Saturday while they were on the Gold Coast in the Tawahi area.

The sources explained that the families of the five abductees were unable to communicate with them or know the destination to which they were transferred, indicating that the leaders of the STC factions denied to their families that they were there.

The sources added that it is likely that elements of the so-called “counter-terrorism” forces loyal to the UAE, led by Shalal Shayea, are behind the kidnapping of Hanbala and the four others, indicating that the region is subject to those forces’ control.

The families and relatives of the abductees in Aden and the southern provinces are calling on international human rights and humanitarian organizations to give importance to the issue of the kidnapped and forcibly disappeared by putting pressure on the STC to reveal their fate since the past years.

YPA