An IOM operation to help up to 2,000 Ethiopian migrants stranded in
northern Yemen to return home is to resume in the early hours of
27th November.

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.

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 the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees (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, the Organization is urgently seeking one million US
dollars to help the remaining nearly 1,000 migrants referred to IOM
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.

IOM is able to assist a total of 1,080 Ethiopian migrants thanks
to the Rapid Response Transportation Fund (RRTF) – an
IOM-maintained emergency fund which can only be activated through a
direct request to IOM to help especially vulnerable groups of
migrants in need of transport assistance, UNHCR and the Swiss
Development Cooperation (SDC).

For more information contact:

Bill Lorenz, in Haradh

Tel: +967 736 777 908

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