Okaz/Saudi Gazette

RIYADH — Groups affiliated with the dissolved Southern Transitional Council had run several secret prisons and torture centers in Yemen’s Hadramaut and Aden. Several people were killed in death chambers or subjected to inhuman tortures in the detention centers. The camera of Okaz newspaper has uncovered the secrets of the torture centers and death chambers within Al-Dhaba Prison in Hadramaut.

According to human rights documentation and testimonies, these facilities are run by officers affiliated with the Abu Dhabi government and are used for extrajudicial detention, physical and psychological torture, murder, and spreading terror among civilians.

The Okaz video showed cramped solitary confinement cells, no larger than one square meter, where detainees are held in inhumane conditions. Brutal torture methods are practiced within these cells, leaving severe psychological and physical scars on the victims. Some of these scars are clearly visible in the detainees’ graffiti on the walls of the underground prison cells.

Mohammed Al-Omda, head of the Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedoms, confirmed to Okaz that a number of detainees released from these prisons, including Al-Mukalla prison, suffered permanent mental injuries as a result of severe torture, while others died in detention centers. He pointed out that these crimes are documented with evidence and proof.

Al-Omda pointed to a systematic arrest campaign by groups affiliated with the dissolved Southern Transitional Council aimed at intimidating people. He explained that they imprison anyone who opposes them.“We don’t know the fate of many politicians and residents of Hadramaut after they were abducted and imprisoned in these detention centers by the fugitive Aidarus al-Zubaidi and his associates from the Abu Dhabi government. These officers were subjecting civilians, both men and women, to the most severe forms of torture in what are known as ‘death chambers,’ terrorizing their families and anyone who objects to their project in the region, which serves the Israeli agenda,” he said.

Al-Omda affirmed that the secret prisons in Hadramaut are torture chambers used to extract confessions under duress, and that systematic and brutal killings are carried out, as attested to by survivors of these prisons. He added that Abu Dhabi has brought nothing but chaos to Yemen. “These crimes against Yemeni citizens do not have a statute of limitations, and both the dissolved Southern Transitional Council and Abu Dhabi, which funds these prisons and oversees their operation and management, should be held accountable for this,” he said.

Al-Omda pointed out that these crimes are in addition to the crimes of violating state sovereignty. “The relevant authorities and human rights organizations in Yemen have met with many families of victims and abductees, and have recorded their testimonies impartially, as well as those of released detainees. We have received hundreds of complaints about the kidnapping and disappearance of citizens in Hadramaut, and their fate remains unknown,” he said.

Al-Omda stated that the perpetrators and their supporters will be prosecuted before international courts for the greatest crime in contemporary history against the people of Hadramaut, including murder, torture, and kidnapping carried out in inhumane and brutal ways by the militias established by the Abu Dhabi government against Yemeni citizens—crimes proven by evidence.

He explained that secret graves have been discovered, containing the remains of those abducted and tortured within these prisons and detention centers in Aden and Hadramawt. These graves hold victims who were summarily executed inside detention facilities, as part of a systematic effort to conceal evidence and cover up the crime. This constitutes extrajudicial killing coupled with enforced disappearance, and is classified, under international human rights law and international criminal law, as a grave violation that may amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes.

He added that there are detainees from Ghayl bin Yamin Hospital and other wounded individuals belonging to the tribes of the Hadramaut Alliance whose fate remains unknown.