Yemen Regime Accused of Torture, Rape and Murder of African Migrants

Local Editor

African migrants and asylum seekers in Yemen have been executed, raped and tortured in detention, Human Rights Watch and the UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Wednesday.

Human Rights Watch said the employees in the resigned Yemeni regime were behind the abuse at a prison in the southern port city of Aden. The group also accused the regime of forcibly deporting others out to sea in overloaded boats.

It said Yemen's interior ministry 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 Yemeni regime 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 launched a military aggression against Yemen war since 2015.

UAE officials and Yemeni officials in Aden did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
The Western-backed coalition has been fighting the Houthis in a three-year war to forcefully restore the resigned regime of former President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. His regime has a presence in Aden, while Hadi lives in Saudi Arabia.

"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, the refugee rights director at HRW. He called on the regime to hold those responsible to account.

HRW said the detention center in Aden's Buraika area had held several hundred Ethiopian, Somali and Eritrean migrants and asylum seekers since early 2017, but that only about 90, mostly Eritrean, remained as of this month.

Mass migration to war zone

A total of 111,504 people are estimated to have arrived in Yemen in 2016, surpassing the previous peak of 107,532 in 2012, according to Reliefweb, the UN humanitarian office's digital information service. The vast majority come from Ethiopia, but Somalis also arrive in their thousands.

In a separate report on Tuesday, UNHCR also said it has received reports of the detention, abuse and forcible deportation of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in Yemen, but did not specify where this was taking place.

"Survivors have described to UNHCR being shot at, regular beatings, rapes of adults and children, humiliations including forced nudity, being forced to witness summary executions, and denial of food," it said.

It called on "state and non-state" actors effectively controlling detention facilities where new arrivals are being held to ensure those being detained are treated humanely.

Many migrants from Horn of Africa countries risk the hazardous journey through Yemen in the hope of finding work in Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Gulf Arab states.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team