Clashes between Yemeni police and Somalis [Archives:2005/904/Front Page]
By: Mohammed Al-Jabri
SANA'A, Dec. 17) Four Somali refugees and one child were killed during clashes on Saturday with Yemeni security forces that rushed to break up a sit-in outside the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the capital Sana'a. Five others were also hurt, one of them died in the hospital. Police detained 25 others.
Four policemen were badly injured while trying to disperse the refugees. Anti-riot police also moved in to control groups of refugees who attacked officers. Police forces first used water hoses and sticks to break up the sit-in, and then they resorted to using arms.
A source in the Ministry of Interior stated that the clashes took place outside the UNHCR in Sana'a between Somali refugees assembling there and security forces that tried to disperse them at the request of the UNHCR.
The source stated that groups of Somali refugees have conducted a sit-in outside the UNHCR Sana'a office for more than a month. They repeatedly attacked and prevented the employees from working. They asked for settlement in a third country, namely the United States. Consequently, the UNHCR closed its Sana'a office.
The source added that a delegation of the High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva visited Sana'a and tried to negotiate with the assembled refugees. However, the refugees rejected to negotiate with them, demanding their deportation either to the USA or Canada, a demand the UNHCR and government cannot fulfill.
Due to their recurrent insistence to be departed and stubborn stance not to negotiate, the UNHCR office asked the Yemeni authorities to disperse the refugees or the office would close. Accordingly, security authorities decided to break up the assembling refugees after attacking police forces.
For more than a month, about 500 refugees, along with their families, have been expressing their demands for improving their current legal, economic and social living conditions, as well as, their forsaken human rights. They complain that they have been badly treated and still they have not received their financial allocations. Some of them reported to the Yemen Times that “with the help of police officers, some Yemeni nationals who look like Somalis managed to get aids from the commissioner for refugees in Yemen, while real Somali refugees have not received any aid.” Amab Hussein, a mother with four children, said to the Yemen Times that her children are starving and may die of frost. Others say officials in the commission office never listen to the refugees' demands.
On the other hand, the UNHCR office in Sana'a refused on Saturday to allow the Yemen Times reporter to meet officials in the office to ask them about the reasons behind the sit-in. Yemen Times reporter Adel Al-Haddad was arrested for one hour by security forces while covering the clash between the police and the Somali refugees. Police forcibly snatched his digital camera and deleted pictures illustrating the clashes between policemen and Somalis.
During the 1991 Somali Civil War, many Somalis fled to neighboring countries like Yemen. Here, Somalis live in refugee camps, cities and villages begging with their children who, as a result, are uneducated. They survive by begging, washing cars, shoe shiners, porters and becoming housemaids and prostitutes. Their earnings from these menial jobs pay mostly for food and house rent. There are approximately 50,000 registered Somali refugees in Yemen, while officials here in Yemen estimate the number of refugees and illegal immigrants to be around 70.000.
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