Germany donates refugee kits to Shabwa’s Mayfa’a Center [Archives:2008/1130/Local News]
Hamed Thabet
SHABWA Feb. 14 ) German Ambassador to Yemen Michael Klor-Berchtold handed over more than 5,000 refugee arrival kits to the Mayfa'a Refugee Reception Center in Shabwa governorate on Thursday.
Representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the local community were on hand to witness the donation ceremony Shabwa.
Financed by a $75,000 donation from the German Embassy, the arrival kits were assembled locally. “The purpose of this donation is to secure the immediate survival of refugees arriving on Yemen's southern coastlines by giving them some very basic assistance, such as food, water, clothing, soap, a blanket, bed sheets and special material for women,” Klor-Berchtold explained.
The German Embassy's donation is meant to assist the Yemeni government in shouldering the burden of caring for the refugees, as well as being an expression of gratitude to the Yemeni people for their noble hospitality and tolerance toward the refugees, Klor-Berchtold stated.
“Since the civil war began in Somalia in 1991, between 2,500 and 3,000 Somalis – sometimes even more – leave their country every month seeking refuge in other countries, particularly Yemen,” noted Adel Jasmin, acting representative of UNHCR in Yemen for the past three years, “So this is why we wanted to help the Yemeni government and share this responsibility together.”
“Before I became ambassador at the German Embassy, I was a special European Union envoy to the African Horn,” Klor-Berchtold remarked, “As I traveled, I witnessed the Somali tribes and the hard and difficult lives they experienced.”
Klor-Berchtold said he learned of the refugees' plight and their difficult entry via boat from newspapers once he arrived in Yemen. He succeeded in obtaining support from Yemen's Foreign Ministry for Refugees, while the German Embassy collaborated with Yemeni authorities and UNHCR to help this new generation of boat people.
According to Jihan Bawazeer, field coordinator for the Mayfa'a Refugee Reception Center, the center took in nearly 115,000 Somalis from 1999 through 2007. In just the first two months of this year alone, the facility already has received nearly 1,300 arrivals.
Ethiopians were the second largest group to come through the center, with 11,716 arrivals from 1999 through 2007, and 417 arrivals so far this year. Additionally, Bawazeer noted that the facility also has assisted refugees from other countries such as Eritrea, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sudan and Tanzania.
Within the past decade, Yemeni coastlines have witnessed a massive influx of refugees. Because they arrive by boat, they often carry little or nothing with them in order to survive. Mayfa'a Center helps register the refugees and offers basic help and support.
“Politically, this program about the Germany's donation of these kits in Mayfa'a center seeks to bring awareness that Germany hasn't forgotten the situation in the African Horn and resist the reoccurrence of this situation in Yemen, and that Germany is always talking care to help the refugees and cooperating with the Yemeni government in its responsibility with refugees who continually coming to Yemen,” Klor-Berchtold explained, “Even though Yemen is a poor country itself, it is openly accepting and shouldering most of the burden for these refugees.”
Currently, Germany is Yemen's largest European donor regarding development, as well as being one of the largest donors to the UNHCR based in Switzerland, Geneva, Switzerland. Germany also provides humanitarian aid directly to Somalia itself, such as offering services in various fields in order to protect and support refugees there.
Established in 1996 with the help of UNHCR, Shabwa's Mayfa'a Refugee Reception Center assists refugees by providing free medicine, food, water and other necessities, according to Aouad Baobaid, UNHCR field specialist at the center.
One of the most difficult situations such refugees experience is when their boat capsizes and many die from drowning. As bodies washed ashore, the Mayfa'a Center collects them and gives them a decent burial.
“We have a team on the coast that constantly keeps an eye on these boats. We also receive great assistance from the Yemeni military and the government to do our job well,” Baobaid explained.
“Those who survive and are severely injured immediately are taken to Mayfa'a,” the center's resident physician Hussein Samen noted, “If their situation is critical, they are taken to Mukalla, Aden or Ataq Hospitals.”
Mayfa'a Center can accommodate between 800 and 1,000 refugees at a time, who are allowed to remain at the center from 24 hours up to three days. Refugees then must register to go to Al-Kharaz Refugee Camp in Lahj governorate. Those who don't are free to leave the center and live elsewhere.Many refugees die at sea every year. For instance, there were more than 130 casualties in early June 2007. However, at the end of that month, the Yemeni Coast Guard saved the lives of 140 refugees marooned at sea due to their disabled boat.
UNHCR's Jasmin explained that refugees are granted refugee-status documents that are effective for three months. While they are given all of the necessary information about the refugee camp, most prefer to go to Yemen's larger cities in search of any type of work to earn a living.
Lahj's Al-Kharaz Refugee Camp has approximately 9,000 refugees – most of them Somalis – with smaller numbers of Ethiopians and Kenyans.
Because the camp has difficulty keeping up with the rapidly increasing number of refugees, Jasmin noted that the UNHCR are attempting to enlarge it.
Additionally, “We have self-help programs to help them begin a better life,” he noted, adding that three HIV cases currently are receiving treatment at Al-Kharaz Camp.
As Klor-Berchtold concluded, “While all nations must give more attention to finding solutions to the Somali war, Yemen continues to play a unique role in the effort to help solve the Somali refugee problem.”
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