WHERE the impoverished, war-torn country of Yemen is concerned, it appears as if international law and human rights conventions do not apply. Ever since a Saudi-Emirati-led coalition intervened in 2015 to dislodge the Houthi militia and restore the country’s president, there has been a steady stream of news regarding abuses perpetrated by all sides, though mostly involving the coalition, emerging from Yemen. The civilian death toll has been unacceptably high but the combatants seem unmoved by the ‘collateral damage’. Just last week, a bus carrying mostly schoolchildren was bombed by the coalition; some 30 children perished. Now evidence is emerging of prisoner abuse by the UAE’s troops and their Yemeni partners. As reported by Al Jazeera, Emirati and Yemeni personnel have been accused of torturing and sexually assaulting detainees in southern parts of the country. The details are chilling. A number of detainees are reported to have died.

These are serious allegations. While it is true that Al Jazeera is Qatari owned — and the emirate is currently engaged in a toxic feud with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi — the grim accounts cannot be dismissed out of hand as similar reports were released by American news agency AP in June and taken note of by Amnesty. What is needed is a thorough probe. While many of those interned in the prisons are said to be militants belonging to the militant Islamic State group and Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch, nothing can justify torture. If the detainees are indeed dangerous militants then they must be tried and punished as per the law; torture and abominable abuse in the name of ‘justice’ are unacceptable. The reports bring to mind Abu Ghraib, the notorious American gulag that made headlines for the US military’s prisoner abuse following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In fact, in the aftermath of Sept 11, several so-called black sites were set up in different parts of the globe by the Americans and their allies to torture and punish suspected militants, away from the norms of justice and human rights. Are we seeing the same dark history being repeated in Yemen? Whether it is abuse of prisoners or the mass murder of civilians in Yemen, the world community, led by the UN, needs to take stronger steps to bring this ruinous war to an end. And as a first step, foreign forces that have brought misery to the people of Yemen need to silence their guns.

Published in Dawn, August 14th, 2018