June 20th is World Refugee Day. It’s a day when the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and others around the world seek to draw the public’s attention to the millions of refugees and internally displaced persons worldwide. Many have been forced to flee their homes due to war, conflict and persecution.
Yemen is the only Arab country in the Peninsula that has signed the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. It is home to at least 230,000 Somali refugees, (the third highest after Kenya and Ethiopia), with more still arriving monthly.
This year’s World Refugee Day will be particularly poignant in Yemen where, just a few weeks ago, a new boat tragedy took place off the coast of Yemen. This claimed 62 lives, the majority were Somalian and Ethiopian migrants. Victims were buried by local residents after their bodies washed ashore in Yemen near the Bab El Mandeb.
This latest tragedy marks the largest single loss of life this year of migrants and refugees attempting to reach Yemen via the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. It follows previous incidents in January, March and April, bringing the known total of deaths at sea of people trying to reach Yemen, to at least 121 so far this year.
More than half a million people (mainly Somalis, Ethiopians and Eritreans) have crossed the dangerous waters of the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea in attempts to reach Yemen over the last five years. Many see Yemen as a place of transit to the rest of the Arabian Peninsula, but then get stuck here. Boats are almost always heavily overcrowded and smugglers have reportedly thrown passengers overboard to prevent capsizing or avoid detection. The practice has resulted in hundreds of undocumented casualties in recent years.
As people who ‘don’t belong’ they are vulnerable to targeting for being ‘different’ and at risk of further displacement from their temporary homes. A recent Human Rights Watch report (‘Yemen’s Torture Camps’, May 2014) recounts stories of systematic abuse, illegal detention and extortion of Ethiopian migrants whilst in transit through Yemen to Saudi Arabia. Migrants are reportedly picked up on Yemen’s beaches, taken to places of detention where they are subjected to painful and degrading treatment in order to extort money from them or their families at home. Those who refuse to pay or cannot pay are further beaten or killed.
The UK is supporting the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) in Yemen: DRC’s Protection Teams patrol the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden coastlines to intercept and register new arrivals and provide them with humanitarian assistance, protection monitoring and counselling. In addition, DRC works with migrant-hosting communities and local authorities to improve the reception conditions for migrants arriving in Yemen.
The UK is also supporting the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) toreinforce and consolidate assistance to the Yemeni government in key migration issues such as preventing child trafficking, assisting the voluntary return of Ethiopian migrants stranded in Somalia en route to Yemen and Saudi Arabia and reinforcing the existing capacity of local authorities in migration management.
Whilst conflict continues in Somalia and Ethiopia, boat loads of people will continue to come to Yemen, mostly seeking to transit through but getting stuck. The refugee issue in Yemen needs a cross-governmental approach with its neighbours to: raise awareness amongst potential refugees of the risks; manage migration and protect the vulnerable.