President
Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's government said on Saturday it was investigating
reports that forces backed by the United Arab Emirates were running
secret
prisons in southern Yemen where detainees are subjected to torture and abuse.
The UAE is
part of a Saudi-led Arab alliance that intervened in Yemen's civil war in 2015
to roll back Iran-allied Houthi forces that drove Hadi into exile. His government
has since regained a presence in the south based in Aden but the Houthis still
hold most of the north including the capital Sanaa.
Reports of
secret prisons where detainees are abused relate to areas of the south where
UAE forces and its allies have also swooped against al Qaeda militants, who
have exploited the war to try to carve out areas of control and influence.
Last week,
New York-based Human Rights Watch reported that it had documented the cases of
49 people, including four children, whom it said were arbitrarily detained or
forcibly disappeared in Aden and Hadramout over the last year.
Yemeni Prime
Minister Ahmed bin Daghr said he had set up a six-member committee headed by
the justice minister to investigate "human rights allegations in liberated
areas".
"The
committee starts work from today and sends its report to the prime minister
within 15 days," the order, dated June 22, said. The committee's duties
were to investigate the abuse allegations, ways to respond to them and to put
forth mechanisms to deal with any such issues in the future.
The HRW
report said that at least 38 of those held appear to have been arrested by
security forces backed by the UAE.
"You
don't effectively fight extremist groups like al Qaeda or ISIS (Islamic State)
by disappearing dozens of young men and constantly adding to the number of
families with 'missing' loved ones in Yemen," Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle
East director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
REUTERS
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