UAE Abducts Yemeni Girls for Rape in Aden, Silences Media Coverage
YemenExtra
M.A.
Two Yemeni girls, aged less than 20 years, were kidnapped and raped by security forces in the UAE last week, and their parents were threatened with verbal threats in case they spoke to the press in two incidents highlighting the increasing phenomenon of girls being kidnapped in Aden. Moreover, YemenExtra received reports that the UAE forces are running a network of security forces loyal to them that kidnap girls and present them to UAE officers.
Media sources in Aden quoted a woman named Amani Ibrahim Omar as saying her daughter was kidnapped and raped about a week ago by recruits from the Dar Saad police, run by security forces loyal to the UAE.
The newspaper “Aden Tomorrow” mentioned that the citizen Amani Omar complained that a member of the police department of Dar Saad manipulated the issue of her daughter’s abduction and raped her later on.
Ibrahim said in her complaint that her daughter was kidnapped by a police officer in Dar Saad, where he took her home more than a week ago and there is where he raped her.
She said that the police continued to procrastinate the case, whereas she recently and under the pressure of the director general of Bariqa District, Hani Yazidi, arrested the accused, but the police now want to characterize the case as adultery and not rape.
The mother confirmed that the officials of the police department of the Dar are currently threatening to imprison the girl and to adopt the case as adultery unless she waives the case against the soldier, calling for her support in the face of the current pressures.
On July 9, the parents of a girl from the Mansour district of Aden discovered that their daughter, Manar Ibrahim Ahmed Mohammed Ghanem, 17, was kidnapped while heading to a nearby shop but did not return until it later became clear that she had been kidnapped.
Manar’s parents explained that the kidnappers used the girl’s phone and sent threatening letters to them and told them that they would throw their daughter’s body the next day in the neighborhood where her house is located.
The kidnapping of girls in Aden has escalated dramatically during the past period and turned into a serious phenomenon, while local sources in Aden revealed in a report to Yemen Extra that the UAE forces are running a network of security elements that abduct girls, especially those under the age of 20.
Then they are to be raped by UAE officers while local security officials bear responsibility and are charged alone for being responsible for kidnapping and rape if any case reaches the media.
The sources added that there are dozens of cases not spoken of by the families of victims, most of whom refrain from communicating with the media because of fear of scandal and also because of threats by the security forces of the UAE for the parents of girls and activists who adopt their cases, noting that a number of activists disappeared after speaking on social media about abductions and the rape of girls, which ended up in secret prisons run by the Emirates in Aden.