UAE officers involved in 37 sexual assault cases in secret prisons: UN expert

SANAA, Sept. 15 (YPA) – Head of UN Human Rights Expert Team in Yemen has revealed the involvement of UAE forces in sexual assaults on detainees and forcibly hidden persons in secret prisons in Yemen’s southern provinces.

In a television interview with Al-Jazeera on Saturday, head of the team Kamal Jendoubi confirmed that the team of human rights experts documented 37 cases of sexual violence committed by Emirati officers and members of their militias in Aden and Hadramout provinces.

“The UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council’s militias are holding a number of women and girls and use them as hostages of war,” Jendoubi said.

He affirmed that the UN team had documented 600 interviews with Yemeni witnesses who experienced crimes of sexual assault and violations committed by the UAE forces in the southern provinces.

The UN team has a list of personalities who committed those crimes, he added.

YPA