United Arab Emirates

Alkarama has learned that the Emirati authorities have released Yemeni businessman Abdullah Ali Abdulhafidh Abdelwahab after nearly four years of arbitrary detention, in connection with posts in which he criticised Emirati airstrikes targeting forces affiliated with the internationally recognised government of Yemen. 

The issue of enforced disappearances in Yemen has once again come to the forefront amid the waning influence of the Southern Transitional Council and its affiliated military formations backed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This development follows the takeover by forces aligned with the internationally recognized government of the temporary capital, Aden, as well as the southern and eastern governorates, a shift that has offered victims’ families a renewed sense of hope in learning the fate of their missing relatives. 

On 24 December 2025, Alkarama submitted a complaint to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) regarding nine Yemeni nationals who were formerly detained in Guantánamo Bay. Having been deprived of their liberty by the United States for several years without charge or trial, they were transferred to the United Arab Emirates between 2015 and 2016 on the understanding that they would be released upon arrival.