GENEVA: The plight of thousands of migrants stranded in Yemen after trying to reach Saudi Arabia and the Gulf has reached desperate proportions, the International Organisation for Migration warned yesterday. “The situation of migrants in Yemen is very grim,” IOM spokesman Jumbe Omari Jumbe told reporters.
Yemen has seen a spike in the number of migrants and refugees from the Horn of Africa who risk their lives to cross the Red Sea in smugglers’ boats only to find themselves blocked at the tightly-controlled Saudi border.
Numbers have doubled from around 53,000 in 2010 to over 107,000 last year. Ethiopians make up the overwhelming majority, but others hail from countries such as lawless Somalia and Eritrea. “In Haradh town, which the migrants see as a gateway to Saudi Arabia and beyond, thousands of migrants roam the streets and sleep rough in the open with no money for food or medicine,” Jumbe said.
“Many migrants visiting IOM’s offices have been rescued from unscrupulous gangs of kidnappers, traffickers and smugglers and are injured, some with broken limbs,” he added.
AFP
