The BBC has been given access to detention facilities on former United Arab Emirates military bases in Yemen, confirming long-standing allegations of a network of secret prisons run by the UAE and forces allied to it in Yemen’s decade-long civil war.
At one site, there were about 10 shipping containers, their interiors painted black, with little ventilation, and messages on the walls which appeared to mark the dates detainees said they were brought in, or to count the number of days they had been held.
Until recently, the Yemeni government, which is backed by Saudi Arabia, was allied with the UAE against the Houthi rebel movement which controls north-west Yemen.
But the alliance between Yemen’s two Gulf state partners has fractured causing UAE forces to be pulled out of Yemen in early January.
Subscribe here: http://bit.ly/1rbfUog
For more news, analysis and features visit: www.bbc.com/news
#Yemen #BBCNews
