Ex-captives describe torture by Al Houthis
Militants use extensive network of black sites to carry out torture on those who criticise them
Farouk Baakar was on duty as a medic at Al Rashid hospital the day a bleeding man was brought into the emergency room with gunshot wounds and signs of torture. He’d been whipped across the back and hung by his wrists for days.
The patient, Baakar learnt, had been left for dead by the side of a highway after being held captive in a prison run by Al Houthi militants who control northern Yemen.
Baakar spent hours removing bullets and repairing a ruptured intestine. He tended to the patient’s recovery for 80 days and, at the end, agreed to pose for a selfie with him.
Weeks later, Al Houthi security officials grabbed the man again. They searched his phone and found the photo.
Then they came for Baakar. He spent 18 months in prisons where he says they burnt him, beat him and chained him to the ceiling by his wrists for 50 days until they thought he was dead.
The AP spoke with 23 people who said they survived or witnessed torture in Al Houthi detention sites.
The Abductees’ Mothers Union, an association of female relatives of detainees jailed by Al Houthis, has documented more than 18,000 detainees in the last four years, including 1,000 cases of torture in a network of secret prisons, according to Sabah Mohammad, a representative of the ■ group in the city of Marib.
The mothers’ group says at least 126 prisoners have died from torture since Al Houthis took over the capital, Sana’a, in late 2014.
Black sites
Mosques, ancient castles, colleges, clubs and other civilian structures have served as first-stop facilities for thousands of detainees before they are moved into official prisons, according to testimonies of victims and human rights agencies.
The mother’s group counted 30 so-called black sites in Sana’a alone.
Anas Al Sarrari recalls slowly regaining consciousness in a dark corridor in the Sanaa’s Political Security prison.
He remembered hanging for 23 hours by his handcuffed wrists from the ceiling of a stuffy interrogation room as numbness claimed his fingers, arms and much of his body. The cuffs began to slit his wrists and he tried to rest on his toes.
His jailers unchained him from the ceiling for a couple hours each day, when he was given hard bread and a plate of vegetables and dirty rice crawling with cockroaches.
When they gave him yoghurt, he was able to see the date written on the container and mark the passage of time.
“My mother doesn’t even know if I am alive or dead,” he thought.
Sending a message
After four months, they cleaned him up and released him. Al Sarrari showed AP copies of his medical records. He now uses a wheelchair and believes that the purpose of his torture and release was to send a message to others who might want to criticise Al Houthis.
“To see people with disabilities, coming out of prison after excessive torture will terrify everyone: Look, this will happen to you if you speak up,” he said.