HRW Demands Accountability for “STC” After Investigators Detained in Secret Prisons

Yemen Monitor / Newsroom:

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has demanded that the UAE-backed “Southern Transitional Council” (STC) be held accountable following what it described as continued abuses within secret detention centers in Yemen. This follows an incident where STC-affiliated forces detained members of a national committee investigating human rights violations.

The organization reported that on January 27, 2026, STC elements detained members of the “National Commission to Investigate Allegations of Human Rights Violations” (NCIAHRV) for three hours after they visited an informal detention center on Socotra Island. They were later released with a warning not to return to the center. HRW also stated that on the same day, the same forces detained two former detainees whom the committee had met during the visit.

The organization quoted one committee member describing the detention site as “one of the worst locations the committee has ever seen,” in reference to the conditions inside.

Nico Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch, emphasized that the STC “has for years operated secret prisons in Yemen, where grave abuses are committed against arbitrarily detained individuals, many of whom are forcibly disappeared.” She considered the detention of the investigators themselves a dangerous escalation in the handling of the human rights file.

She added that the Council, “instead of addressing these allegations, is targeting those working to uncover them,” calling for accountability for what she described as widespread violations.

The organization noted that it, alongside the Associated Press, has previously documented a network of secret detention centers operated by the UAE or UAE-backed Yemeni forces, documenting cases of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance.

Human Rights Watch called for an end to the use of informal detention centers, a halt to extrajudicial detentions, and the opening of independent investigations leading to the accountability of those responsible, while ensuring unrestricted access for monitoring bodies to all places of detention in Yemen.