A/HRC/42/CRP.1 Ahmed II and Bureiqa have also acted as the departure point for detainees to other facilities in Hadramaut, 278 and Assab, Eritrea.279 222. In almost all cases investigated by the Group, there was no evidence of formal legal proceedings or access to legal representation.280 In most cases investigated, the detainees were either Resistance leaders, Yemeni armed forces soldiers and officers, ‘northerners’, human rights activists, journalists or linked to religious leaders. 281 (a) Al-Bureiqa coalition base detention facility, Aden 223. Al-Bureiqa coalition base operates as the Headquarters for the coalition in Yemen, and is controlled by the United Arab Emirates. 282 It is located in al-Bureiqa district of Aden governorate and was established in 2015 at the outset of the coalition intervention in the conflict.283 Within the confines of the base, the coalition operates a secret detention facility. The Group investigated cases where detainees were routinely taken directly to al-Bureiqa, or transferred there from Bir Ahmed II, for periods from a few days to 10 months, 284 before being transferred back to Bir Ahmed II. Detainees were kept in solitary confinement. As a result, the Group could not establish the number of detainees in the facility. The site contains multiple buildings with multiple stand-alone cells and detention and interrogation rooms. In the more than 14 separate cases investigated between 2017 and May 2019, detainees, including one boy, were former Resistance fighters, Government soldiers, and human rights activists. The sample of cases investigated is believed to represent a snapshot of the true scale and seriousness of violations occurring there. 224. At al-Bureiqa, all detainees were kept in solitary confinement. They were then taken to specific rooms, variously referred to by the United Arab Emirates military personnel as the ‘Torture Room’ or ‘Room of Dreams’ and subjected to lengthy interrogations and torture by United Arab Emirates military personnel over several hours, often repeatedly over a series of days, weeks or months. All detainees were handcuffed and many were blindfolded during their interrogation as a means to disorient and disable them. In these interrogations, United Arab Emirates military personnel applied torture, threats, and sexual violence. They applied this purposefully in order to humiliate, degrade, stigmatise andcoerce detainees to confess or to forcibly recruit them. Torture included electrocutions, hanging from the ceiling for long periods, repeated beatings with metal cables, removal of finger and toe nails, forced nudity, rape, and sexual assault. 285 225. The Group of Experts documented cases of sexual violence at the al-Bureiqa detention facility between 2017 and 2019. The Group of Experts documented the rape of six men and one boy in addition to other sexual assaults and forced nudity. In a number of cases, the victims were raped several times. United Arab Emirates military personnel perpetrated oral and anal rape with objects and with penises. This included gang rape by multiple military personnel. In all cases sexual violence was used as an interrogation and torture technique. Detainees reported that the violence and threats used would escalate, and the ultimate threat was of rape. When United Arab Emirates military personnel did not succeed in achieving their goals with other means, they raped or sexually abused the victims (b) Bir Ahmed II detention facility, Aden 226. Bir Ahmed II detention facility is the second largest detention facility in Aden governorate after the Government of Yemen-run al-Mansoura Central Prison. Bir Ahmed II 278 Confidential Sources on File. Confidential Sources on File. 280 Confidential Sources on File. 281 Confidential Sources on File. 282 Located at 12.814607, 44.891368. 283 Confidential Sources on File. See also United Nations, Security Council Panel of Experts on Yemen, 26 January 2018, S/2018/68. 284 Confidential Sources on File. 285 Confidential Sources on File. 279 53