Somali immigrants face death in the Red Sea [Archives:2005/875/Front Page]
5 Sept, Sana'a- YT: Yemen has continuously been the transit point and sometimes destination for many immigrants coming from the African horn testing their fate, more than 2,500 people have been reported to attempt immigration in the last three years. More than 250 immigrants have been reported to sail on boats on 30 August from a coastal village some 25 km from northeastern Somalia's port town of Bossaso. Many of whom were women and children heading for Yemen. The security authorities in Beer Ali seized 90 Somalis, who have entered the country waters coming from the African Horn. Security sources said that those persons, including 15 women, were arrested in the last two days while they were illegally trying to enter Yemeni territories. The sources said the seized Somalis had been brought to Maifa'ah camp of refugees before taking them to Kharaz camp in Lahj governorate. There were two boats that were making an illegal crossing from Somalia to Yemen when the 18 smugglers – armed with guns, daggers and clubs – turned on their passengers. Of the immigrants at least 58 people drowned and some 150 others were missing when armed men smuggling would-be immigrants to Yemen in two boats forced them overboard several kilometres from the shore, sources said on Monday. Survivors have been given tents for temporary shelter near the coast and are to be transferred to a Somali refugee centre. It is unclear what happened to the smugglers.
IRIN reported that the acting Somali Consul-General, Husayn Haji Ahmad, said that as of Sunday, 37 people had been found alive. He said the smugglers, out of fear of interception by Yemeni coastguards, had on Friday afternoon forced people – at gunpoint – to jump into the sea some five km from the shore.
“Many of those people who jumped did not even know how to swim,” Ahmad said. “Local fishermen picked up some of the 35 men and two women, while others swam to the shore.” “Some bodies of dead passengers washed up on the beach,” he added, and said search and rescue operations by Yemeni authorities were continuing, but “hopes of finding any more survivors are dwindling”.
On 1 September, the UN Independent Expert on the Situation of Human Rights in Somalia, Ghanim Alnajjar, cited trafficking in human beings as one of the common abuses in Somalia. “The lack of coastline monitoring encourages human trafficking, often with fatal consequences for those who seek to leave Somalia for a better life elsewhere, many of whom drown or arrive at their destination only to discover that their hopes for a better life cannot be realised,” Alnajjar told a news conference in Nairobi, Kenya following a trip to Somalia.
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