Detainees in Aden on Hunger Strike; Human Rights Watch Condemns Detainees Abuse

Over 100 detainees in the Bir-Ahmed prison, east of Aden, run by the UAE forces, continue their hunger strike using the slogan “Empty Stomach” for the fifth day, demanding to be released or brought to trial. The majority of these detainees have been in UAE custody for two years, including members of the Popular Resistance.
The Association of Mothers of Enforced Disappeared Persons in Aden staged a sit-in today to demand the release of their detained and enforced disappeared sons, holding the UAE forces and their armed factions responsible for the deteriorating health conditions of the detainees and preventing their release.
For at least the past 20 months, the sit-ins of the mothers of the kidnapped in Aden have not stopped despite several attempts of repression and assault, and despite the neglect of the international community to hear their voices, while human rights organizations remain silent.
The UAE have always denied the existence of prisons and secret detention facilities since Human Rights Watch published a report on the presence of more than 22 secret detentions run by the UAE in a number of southern governorates, but now their existence has been revealed and cannot ever be denied. But the association revealed the names of detainees in Bir-Ahmed prison from Aden, Lahj, Abin and Taiz governorates, with testimonies that many of them were tortured inside the prison.
“Detainees should not have to refuse food to be treated humanely and free from abuse,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, in a press release issued today. “The UAE and their Yemeni proxies should stop denying responsibility for mistreatment and investigate and act on the complaints.”
The sit-in of the association coincided with the visit of the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mr. Mark Lowcock.