By Bayram Altug

GENEVA (AA) – A number of Yemeni detainees have been subjected to ill-treatment, torture and sexual abuse by United Arab Emirates (UAE) soldiers, the UN Human Rights Office in Geneva said on Tuesday .

“We have engaged with U.A.E. government on this issue and requested access to U.A.E.-run prisons in the country but to date we have not been granted access,” Liz Throssell, UN Human Rights Office spokeswoman told Anadolu Agency.

“From the initial information that our office in Yemen has managed to gather, we have reason to believe that a number of Yemeni detainees have been subjected to ill-treatment, torture and sexual abuse by U.A.E. soldiers,” she said.

The UN Human Rights Office is continuing to monitor the situation with a view to deciding what follow-up steps are needed, she added.

United Arab Emirates officers tortured detainees in 18 secret prisons in Yemen, an AP news agency investigation reported last month.

Witnesses last month told the Associated Press news agency that Yemeni guards working under the direction of Emirati officers have used various methods of sexual torture and humiliation.

According to the AP report, they raped detainees while other guards filmed the assaults and electrocuted prisoners’ genitals or hung rocks from their testicles.

They sexually violated others with wooden and steel poles, reports said, adding that they searched the anal cavity of prisoners, claiming that they were looking for contraband mobile phones.

After the AP report last month, UAE denied torturing Yemenis.

“Yemeni authorities are in complete control of local and federal governance, judicial and prison systems. The UAE has never managed or run prisons or secret detention centres in Yemen,” the UAE Mission in Geneva said in a public tweet.

[Map of UAE by CIA/Public Domain]