News - Yemen: Reports from media sources aligned with Emirati mercenaries state that Adib Mohammed Bamatraf died in a prison under Emirati occupation control in the city of Mukalla, Hadhramout province, due to torture.

According to these reports, Bamatraf's family was contacted by local forces associated with the Emirati occupation, who requested them to collect his body. Bamatraf exhibited severe signs of physical torture, including marks consistent with strangulation.

The family has accused Emirati officer Faisal Al Kaabi, who is purportedly in charge of the investigations and the conduct of interrogations in Mukalla’s clandestine prisons, of being directly responsible for their son's death.

Bamatraf was reportedly taken from his home by the Southern Transitional Council militia in the Rukab area, east of Mukalla, before being transferred to the Emirati-administered facility.

Hadhramout and other occupied provinces suffer from a state of security chaos and have become a scene of murders, kidnappings, and torture of civilians. Violations and crimes are exacerbated in the areas under the control of the US-Saudi aggression and mercenaries, with the complicity of the security authorities there, which have reached the point of deliberately targeting civilians with killing and threats.

What is happening in occupied provinces are war crimes and flagrant violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law. However, human rights organizations do not move a finger about these violations.

In May 2021, the Media Center for Southern Governorates released a report detailing operations in covert prisons throughout the occupied southern provinces of Yemen. These facilities, described as significant black sites, are used by Saudi-Emirati forces as tools of suppression against those opposing their occupation and destructive policies.

Despite Abu Dhabi's public announcement of its withdrawal from Yemen and the transition of control to Saudi Arabia in early October 2019, no UAE-associated secret prisons have been shut down in the years following. Formerly government-run detention centers overseen by the Ministry of the Interior have reportedly been converted into prisons managed by armed militias under Saudi-Emirati command.

These occupying forces have established unlawful detention centers within their militia camp headquarters across various southern governorates.

According to the Media Center for Southern Governorates, Aden remains the central location for these Emirati-run secret prisons, covertly administered by Saudi forces since they assumed command in early October 2019.

Three such facilities have been identified in Bir Ahmed, west of Aden: one group detention center, a solitary confinement facility, and a secretive prison designated for those who have been forcibly disappeared.

Moreover, the Support Forces, Security Belt, and Special Forces Camp in the city have both solitary and group detention facilities. They have transformed the prison facilities previously dedicated to intelligence, political, and national security in Aden into secret prisons controlled by the militias of the Emirati-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC). The only exception is the central prison in Aden, which remains under the jurisdiction of the Public Prosecution in Aden.