Hundreds of detainees stuck in the UAE-run prisons in Yemen are facing sexual mass abuse by Emirati officers. In a recently-released investigation by the Associated Press, seven witnesses from inside the prisons were able to smuggle letters and drawings on plastic plates drawn by a blue ink pen about the sexual abuses they faced during March 2018.

According to the AP, 15 officers- who were speaking clear Emirati accents, arrived at a prison in southern Yemen hiding their faces behind head dresses. They lined up detainees, ordered them to undress and lie down before they started sexually molesting naked prisoners claiming they were looking for smuggled cell phones.

Describing when first torture incidents began, witnesses said they were ordered out of the prison where officers undressed them and sexually molested them. One prisoner shouted: “Did you come to liberate us or strip our clothes off?” The officer shouted back: “This is our job!”.

The AP investigation prompted anger among Yemenis raising concerns over UAE violations of human rights among the international community.

Marietje Schaake EU Parliament Representative shared the investigation saying: “More cynical suffering in Yemen."

Glenn Greenwald, a journalist and author tweeted:

Others blamed the US for everything happening Yemen, even starting the war in 2015.

Sexual torture have been performed in five different prisons, four of them were in Aden, AP reported citing Yemeni security officials who spoke anonymously for fear of retaliation. Moreover, many torture acts were carried out by Yemeni officers working under the direction of Emirati officers.

Several methods were used to torture prisoners, including raping detainees while other guards are filming it, electrocuted prisoners and sexually torturing others with wooden and steel poles.

“The worst thing about it is that I wish for death every day and I can’t find it,” a prisoner who drew graphics describing torture inside the prisons told the AP.

The drawings varied, one showed a man hanging naked from chains while being electrocuted, another one lying on the floor surrounded by snarling dogs as several people kick him and other drawings describe the anal rape they have been subjected to.

Humiliating prisoners in March is believed to be triggered by a series of hunger strikes among prisoners who were held for months or years without being accused of anything.

The Yemeni government acknowledged they have no control over the UAE-controlled prisons. Meanwhile, AP has documented torture in UAE-controlled prisons through several reports, however, human rights groups and even the United Nations denied having any evidence of detainee abuse in Yemen.

The UAE, one of the US allies have been fighting allegedly on behalf of Yemen’s government in the Yemeni war since it began in 2015, after which Houthi rebels took over much of its northern cities and forced out the government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. UAE has overtaken wide territories in southern Yemen since then.