IOM will this month organize a final air evacuation of 277 stranded
Ethiopian migrants from Yemen's border with Saudi Arabia, unless
new funding to continue repatriation flights is found.

To date, IOM has assisted more than 6,000 Ethiopian migrants to
return home from Haradh, a town close to the border used by the
migrants as a stepping stone to reach Saudi Arabia. But some 12,000
stranded migrants, mostly from the Horn of Africa, remain.

Living conditions for the migrants in the town are described by
IOM transit centre staff on the ground as "terrible" and worsening
due to increasing numbers of new arrivals and depleted resources.
Tensions are also rising between the migrants and the local
community.

Many migrants are reportedly suffering from diarrheal diseases,
malaria, respiratory infections and snake bites from sleeping in
the open. Others are suffering from broken limbs, gunshot wounds
and other signs of maltreatment by human traffickers and
smugglers.

Local media in Yemen have also reported an increasing number of
attacks against the migrants by human traffickers and smugglers,
some of which have been fatal. One newspaper, Al-share,
last week printed graphic pictures of migrants with missing body
parts – atrocities reportedly perpetrated by trafficking
gangs. The same paper carried accounts of kidnapped migrants forced
by traffickers to contact their families in the Gulf to extort
ransoms.

Local authorities in Haradh are increasingly concerned at the
surge in irregular migrants competing for scarce resources and
desperately scavenging the streets. The local community sees them
as contributing to the mounting instability in the area.

The IOM transit centre, which provides accommodation and limited
medical and psychosocial assistance for migrants who wish to return
home, is packed to capacity with over 400 residents, including
women and children. When it was established in 2010 it was intended
to accommodate just 150.

Yemen has long been a destination and transit point for mixed
migration flows from the Horn of Africa to the Gulf and beyond. A
total of 103,154 new arrivals were registered in 2011, double the
number of the previous year. In February alone, approximately
12,454 new arrivals were registered, of whom 10,496 were from
Ethiopia.

For more information please contact:

Nicoletta Giordano

IOM Yemen

Tel: +9671410568/572

E-mail: "mailto:ngiordano@iom.int">ngiordano@iom.int