The BBC’s Yalda Hakim visits a so-called ‘torture camp’ Efta is just 17 but has experienced shocking brutality.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The Ethiopian teenager survived a treacherous boat journey being smuggled across the Red Sea.<\/p>\n
But on reaching Yemen, she was kidnapped and driven at gunpoint to a mud brick house.<\/p>\n
She said: “They tortured other girls in front of me. They beat us and they raped us at gunpoint. I was terrified.”<\/p>\n
She is one of 80,000 Ethiopian migrants who undertake this dangerous journey every year.<\/p>\n
They hope they will find work in the wealthy Gulf state of Saudi Arabia and be able to send money home.<\/p>\n
Hafton’s story<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n
Hafton Ekar, 23, made the journey from Ethiopia to Yemen with a group of friends.<\/p>\n
Their aim was to find work in Saudi Arabia to support their families but they were kidnapped shortly after being smuggled into Yemen.<\/p>\n
Hafton’s father was told he needed to pay $300 to free his son but after the ransom was paid, Hafton was sold on to a ‘torture camp’.<\/p>\n
The new gang wanted another $250 but there was no money left. Hafton was brutally tortured.<\/p>\n
“They hurt me very badly. I can’t use the bathroom any more. I’m paralysed,” he said.<\/p>\n
His friends carried him on their backs when they escaped. Hafton now lies on a mattress in the refugee centre in Haradh.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
But they risk being exploited by criminal gangs and the Yemeni military in the 500 km (310 miles) trek across Yemen to the Saudi border.<\/p>\n
‘Raped and burned’Efta was held at what is known as a “torture camp” for three months.<\/p>\n
She was too ashamed to ask her parents for money to set her free so she was raped every day.<\/p>\n
Once it became clear that no ransom was going to be paid and after Efta fell ill, she was thrown out on the street.<\/p>\n
She is now being cared for in a refugee centre run by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in the Yemeni border town of Haradh.<\/p>\n
She remains traumatised by her experience.<\/p>\n
“The women get raped and the men are burned. They break bones. They take people’s eyes out,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Everything you can imagine, they do it. I saw it with my own eyes.”<\/p>\n
Most of the Ethiopians we met came from the Tigray region in the north of the country.<\/p>\n
They crossed the mountains into Djibouti and then paid people smugglers to take them across the Red Sea at its shortest point, Bab al-Mandab (or the Gate of Grief).<\/p>\n
It was a harbinger of the trials and tribulations ahead of them where thousands are tortured and sexually exploited by people smugglers.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/68826000\/jpg\/_68826436_yemen_crossing_624.jpg\")
A map showing the journey of Ethiopian migrants to Saudi Arabia.<\/div>\nAnd if they make it to Haradh, many die trying to get across the heavily-fortified border into Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
Saleh Sabri is the local undertaker. He has lost count of the number of migrants he has buried.<\/p>\n
“Some people are shot at the border. Some have been hung. Some are beaten to death,” he said.<\/p>\n
“They all die from unnatural causes.”<\/p>\n
Inside ‘torture camp’For centuries, Haradh has thrived on gun-running and drug-smuggling. Now, the commodity is people.<\/p>\n
The Medecins Sans Frontieres charity says there are an estimated 200 “torture camps” in this area alone.<\/p>\n
We become the first journalists to enter one after we are promised safe passage by a local judge.<\/p>\n
![\"Five](\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/68792000\/jpg\/_68792528_gvoftorturecamp.jpg\")
Five migrants under armed guard in what is known as a ‘torture camp’ in Haradh, Yemen<\/div>\nOne of the judge’s soldiers accompanies us for our safety.<\/p>\n
We drive across sand dunes to reach a mud brick house on the outskirts of town.<\/p>\n
As we enter, there appear to be five migrants sitting on the ground with two armed men guarding them.<\/p>\n
We ask them if they have been abused.<\/p>\n
“For the last three days, they have threatened to beat us if our families don’t pay,” said one migrant.<\/p>\n
We then spot the entrance to a small room at the edge of the compound.<\/p>\n
The soldier says this is where the migrant women are taken.<\/p>\n
We ask to go inside but the soldier says what is going on behind the door could be haram, meaning forbidden.<\/p>\n
We are told there could be a man and a woman in there.<\/p>\n
We are not allowed to knock on the closed door but there are two pairs of shoes outside.<\/p>\n
A man then appears with a pistol who says he was the owner of the camp. We ask him if torture exists on this farm.<\/p>\n
“That’s forbidden,” he said.<\/p>\n
“There’s no torture here. If we were capturing them by force, we’d have plenty of migrants there. They come here willingly.”<\/p>\n
We also ask if there are women here.<\/p>\n
“No, there’s no women in this farm,” he said.<\/p>\n
After we left, we visited a senior local police officer and told him what we had seen.<\/p>\n
We understand that the next day, all the migrants in the camp were released.<\/p>\n
The International Organization for Migration says it is dealing with an “international humanitarian crisis”.<\/p>\n
Failed stateBut Yemen is ill-equipped to solve this problem when it is fighting two insurgencies that have displaced tens of thousands.<\/p>\n
![\"Yalda](\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/68792000\/jpg\/_68792535_yalda.jpg\")
<\/div>\n![\"The](\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/68795000\/jpg\/_68795740_haradhundertaker.jpg\")
The undertaker of Haradh burying another migrant. Saleh Sabri says he has lost count of the number.<\/div>\n