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“In February, an official at the National Security Bureau called me and set up an appointment to negotiate my son’s release,” Sadoon said. “He said he could release Tareq from prison if we paid him a ransom of $1000. I’m too poor to pay so much money,” he said with a sigh, adding, “Tareq’s mother keeps crying all the time and I can’t take it anymore.”

Yahya then broke into tears as he looked at a poster of his son.

Yemeni Human Rights Minister Hooria Mashhor told The Media Line that at least 64 of the youths who took part in the uprising against the former regime have been missing since 2011. In many cases, he said, their families have no information about their fate.

During the months of the uprising against Saleh’s 33-year authoritarian rule, human rights groups say thousands of activists were detained and imprisoned for varying lengths of time. They were kept in solitary underground cells, and often subjected to torture, although most were eventually released.

“The torture included beatings, scalding with boiling water, and mock executions,” Mohammed Naji Alaw, a former member of parliament and activist on behalf of the missing youth, told The Media Line. “The youths told us that they had been detained in very tiny cells, where they had to eat, drink, sleep and urinate in the same place.”

Alaw said many of the youths who were released showed signs of torture and post-traumatic stress.

“I was driving down the street with my brother and another activist when a police car stopped us and forced us out of our car,” Abdu Karim Thael, 27, told The Media Line. “We were blindfolded and taken to one of the National Security Bureau’s secret prisons.We were kept in very tiny solitary cells in which you can hardly sleep,” he continued. “They kept bright lights on 24-hours a day so we couldn’t sleep. We were beaten and threatened. While we were blindfolded, they kept cocking their machine guns and we thought we were about to executed.”