The human rights activist and Nobel Peace laureate Tawakkol Karman has denounced practices of Aden’s UAE-backed and -financed Security Belt Forces as terrorist acts.

Karman confirmed on her Twitter account that these forces run by the UAE are responsible for extrajudicial killings and other crimes, including abductions, in Yemen. 

According to Karman’s statement, the security belt forces in Aden have recently kidnapped a six-year-old boy as a hostage as a means of pressure against his family to bring his “secular” brother Ishaq Ghulam. 

Human Rights Watch said in a report issued last month that “the UAE supports Yemeni forces that have arbitrarily detained, forcibly disappeared, tortured, and abused dozens of people during security operations.”

“The UAE finances, arms, and trains these forces, which ostensibly are going after Yemeni branches of Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State,” HRW added in the report. 

HRW also pointed out that the UAE additionally runs at least two informal detention facilities, and its officials appear to have ordered the continued detention of people despite release orders, and forcibly disappeared people.