Stranded Ethiopian Migrants Begin Journey Home From Yemen (News Brief)

(HN, November 26, 2010) - In just a few hours, an operation to help up to 2,000 Ethiopian migrants stranded in northern Yemen to return home will commence.  

Coordinated by the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM), a group of 33 irregular migrants will be voluntarily taken to Ethiopia on a commercial flight. They will be first taken to the Yemeni capital, Sana'a from Haradh on Yemen's border with Saudi Arabia. Ethiopian migrants stranded in Yemen; CREDIT: Refugees United Australia

Between 29th November and 9 December, an additional 434 stranded Ethiopians will be assisted to return home. This includes 140 vulnerable Ethiopian women and minors currently held in Yemeni detention centres around the country as irregular migrants.

More than 600 stranded Ethiopian migrants were already assisted by IOM in mid-November. They were part of a group of 2,000 irregular Ethiopian migrants referred to IOM by UNHCR. Stranded at the Yemeni border with Saudi Arabia in very poor health and with no food, shelter or the means to either continue their journey or return home, the migrants had been living out in open spaces and surviving on whatever scraps of food they could find.

However, IOM is urgently seeking one million US dollars to help the remaining nearly 1,000 migrants referred to for assistance. 

The 2,000 Ethiopian migrants represent a fraction of the growing numbers of migrants in Haradh.  Yemen has long been a major transit route for migrants and asylum-seekers from the Horn of Africa to the Middle East and beyond. However, the conflict between Houthi insurgents and government forces in Yemen's Saada province, and Saudi Arabia's reinforcement of its border with Yemen in recent months, has led to a bottleneck of migrants at Haradh, the only open crossing point with Saudi Arabia. 

Although most of the migrants in Haradh are young men from Ethiopia, with some coming from Somalia and Sudan, there are also women and children present. 

- HUM staff, IOM