Women Journalists Without Chains (WJWC) expresses its deep concern over human rights violations committed in the Yemeni provinces of Aden and Hadhramaut, where dozens of people, including children, have been arbitrarily detained, forcibly disappeared, tortured, and abused in secret network of prisons run by the United Arab Emirates and Yemeni proxy forces.
According to a report released by human rights watch last Sunday, 49 cases, including four children, were arbitrarily arrested or forcibly disappeared in Aden and Hadhramaut.
UAE-backed security forces appear to have arrested or detained at least 38 of them. Several sources, including Yemeni officials, the existence of numerous informal detention facilities and secret prisons in Aden and Hadhramaut, including two prisons run by the UAE while others by the Yemeni proxy security forces.
Human Rights Watch documented people held at 11 such sites in the two southern provinces.
Women Journalists Without Chains strongly condemns these crimes, which have affected dozens of people, and sees in what has taken place in both provinces a crime against humanity, which is contrary to all international laws and conventions.
WJWC calls on the United Nations to create an international commission of inquiry into serious human rights violations committed in Aden and Hadhramaut by military and security forces of the United Arab Emirates, expose the perpetrators of these violations and bring them to justice.
Issued by:
Women Journalists Without Chains
June 27, 2017