Somaliland Cyberspace's Message Board

Articles listed do not imply endorsement of content. While every care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the contents of the web site, Somaliland Cyberspace cannot accept liability for errors or omissions or any loss arising therefore, however caused. In addition, opinions expressed in the articles appearing here are those of the writer(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the site editor. They are included in our material as a reflection of a diversity of views and a variety of issues. If you have an issue with a posted material, please contact the source.

Somaliland cyberspace News Board

News archives

A Crossing Made in Hell - Somali Refugees Risk Everything
IP: 216.207.146.26
Posted on January 8, 2010 at 05:41:40 PM by mb

A Crossing Made in Hell - Somali Refugees Risk Everything

December 21, 2009

disaster looming refugees in Somaliland(video)

Yemen: Risking Refuge

Jowhar, Somalia (TML) - Mohamed "Yarisow" Hassan lived in war torn Mogadishu for over 20 years before he attempted to flee to Yemen by boat.

He failed to reach Yemen three times, each time just barely surviving tragedies at sea.

Hassan carries an aged bag with some belongings, ready to board a car to Bossaso, from where he's hoping to catch a boat to Yemen and to a better life. He knows that Bossaso, the harbor where the migrants' journeys start, will be crowded with other determined youths looking to cross the Gulf of Aden in spite of all the difficulties.

''This is a thoroughly unpredictable, deadly journey'' Hassan told The Media Line at a bus station in Jowhar town. ''I pray to survive all the things you hear in traffickers' heartbreaking stories."

Every day, hundreds of immigrants are crammed into small wooden boats and ordered to sit on their knees as armed smugglers sit on guard at the edge of the boat. They face beatings by traffickers, the threat of sharks that prowl the waters where boats regularly break down, and the lack of water throughout the long journey.

According to survivors' testimonies, thousands drown every year, many of them forced off smugglers' boats often miles from the shore in deep waters.

''On my last attempt, traffickers badly beat a pregnant woman after she asked for a more comfortable position,'' he says, recalling the distressing journey to Yemen. ''They threw her into the sea."

Hassan was beaten with gun-buts when he tried to stand for a breath of fresh air. He is lucky to be alive.

''I can hardly imagine the horror of that time,'' he said.

But despite the difficulties he is still hopeful he will fulfill his dream: a better life and a job in Saudi Arabia.

"It's a long journey that needs great efforts and patience," he said. ''I know that I will undergo difficulties, but I can't bear what is happening in our country. Al-Shabaab may force you into war, and if you refuse they will kill you.''

The numbers of immigrants coming into Yemen from Ethiopia, Somalia and Eritrea, are on the rise. Every month, thousands reach the shores of a country that is itself strained with internal fighting between its government and violent insurgents.

A September report by the UN refugee agency UNHCR found there were over 160,000 registered refugees in Yemen, 153,080 of whom were Somalis.

With the unabated chaos in Somalia, swathes of Mogadishu's inhabitants are looking to escape through any means possible. Officials in Puntland, a semi-autonomous region in northern Somalia, are finding it increasingly difficult to cope with the flow of migrants.

More than 15,000 Somalis are living in camps for internally displaced persons, but life in the camps is often so hard it pushes those that have survived to emigrate elsewhere. Most are struggling not only with the effects of long-term poverty and familial turmoil, but the additional traumas that have resulted from their daily exposure to bombings, violence, and the all pervasive fighting that has taken over their lives.

Mohamed Sheikh Ali, a former high school student who fled Mogadishu, said life was only marginally better in the camps.

"I can say we have freedom of movement, but not a good life and no help except basic aid," he said.

Analysts believe hundreds of children have died as a result of the war in Somalia.

'"More than 150 children under 15 died while they were fighting alongside Al-Shabaab'' Somali political analyst Nor Shamsudin told The Media Line in Mogadishu. ''When you see children fleeing to neighboring countries as immigrants, you realize that the situation is incredibly desperate.''

Despite the possibility of robbery, abandonment and coming across wild animals living in the shrub, refugees will travel long distances by foot to get across the border.

"I was beaten and robbed by three men with guns near the Sudanese border on my way to Libya," an anxious young survivor told The Media Line. "I was forcibly repatriated with nothing to do in Mogadishu."

Djibouti has also become a stop for large numbers of refugees on their way to Yemen.

Fatima Ibrahim, 24, made a deal with human traffickers in Djibouti for a sea voyage to Yemen.

"I am about to leave to Djibouti through Somaliland," she said. "There is a ship there which will take us to Yemen. Being here in Mogadishu is not a life.''

Her plans have not been easy on those close to her.

"I have tried to tell my husband and family about my plans but they all rejected it," she told The Media Line. "I can't listen to them, I have to leave soon."

Though the most popular destination is Yemen, where immigrants are mostly able to enter refugee camps, some are less lucky.

''Yemen is a good country, but as increasing numbers of people arrive, they are being jailed,'' Hassan said.

As his bus blared its horn and the driver pressed him to board, he left for Yemen, waving goodbye with only the small shoulder bag on his back.

There, on what they call the beaches of death, lay the body and dreams of a young Somali, washed up on the shore.

Two days ago, he left the Horn of African through the Somali port of Bossaso along with 124 clandestine passengers on board a crammed little boat.

Every year, thousands attempting to escape from poverty and war, put their lives in smugglers' hands to cross the gulf, where they hope, a better future awaits them. This man's dream ended, on the wrong side of the shore, and like many others, he is now just a body with a number for an epitaph resting in a graveyard overlooking the sandy beach.

Yasseen, an Ethiopian refugee was one of the 'lucky' ones who reached Aden alive. Badly bruised, dehydrated with skin sores and rashes, he set foot on the beach happy to have made it alive.

"I am determined to reach Saudi Arabia," says the 28-year old only a few hours after landing on the shores of Yemen, where he hopes to find someone to smuggle him to Saudi Arabia.

"Conditions on the boat were unimaginable," says Yasseen, who affirmed some passengers go insane during the 36-hour trip.

"We were 120 people in a boat that can actually only take 20 people, all piled up over each other. We urinate, throw up and defecate in the same spot the smugglers put us. You go crazy," he said, as he prepared to meet one of the Medicins Sans Frontiers doctors, stationed on the shores of Aden to provide emergency aid to new arrivals.

Another refugee, who identified himself as Youssef, said he came from the province of Walu in Ethiopia, and hopes to become a "political prisoner".

"When smugglers threw us on the water, they told us this was Saudi Arabia, but we discovered it was Yemen," says Youssef, who will have to cross around 3000km of inhospitable lands on his way to Saudi Arabia.

Passengers have reported being beaten savagely during the trip so as to keep them still. Abrupt movement can cause the boats to capsize and since language is a barrier, metal bars talk.

"For the smugglers, killing a refugee or two is as normal as drinking water," says an old woman, who made it with her young daughter after a similarly tough journey. Women and children, and men are put into separate groups on the same boat but the treatment is the same for all, with no food and almost no water onboard.

Upon reaching the Gulf, the passengers are thrown overboard whether they know how to swim or not, said Yasseen. Some are saved by their survival instinct; others swallowed up by the waters and drown.

Despite the dangers, many still choose to leave family behind and undertake the grueling crossing repeatedly until they succeed in entering Saudi Arabia or one of the Somali UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency) camps in Yemen, built to receive the newcomers.

Claire Bourgeois, head of UNHCR in Yemen admits the odds are against Somalis as well as Ethiopian refugees, whose numbers are swelling.

"The war in Somalia is driving tens of thousands to immigrate to Yemen. Ethiopians are also escaping famine," she says.

"We try to provide help when they land. But our funds are limited," she told the Media Line from her office in Sanaa.

Although thousands of refugees flock from the Horn of Africa seeking a new life in a western country, few of them actually make it.

Bourgeois says UNHCR has been given a quota to resettle around 700 refugees from Somalia, Ethiopia, Iraq, Sudan and Eritrea every year.

"Of course, the number is so small, it is nothing, the criteria to resettle is very tight," she admits.

Yasseen has seven days to leave the country, before being whisked away by police and locked up in the smoggy prison cells of Yemen, where he faces yet another uncertain future.

UNHCR managed to get a seven-day grace period for Ethiopian refugees, before they are threatened with prison and deportation. In that time, many desperately try to join family members or relatives in Saudi Arabia or Yemen often with little idea of where they are.

For those who attempted the crossing to find a better life in Yemen or Saudi Arabia, the situation isn't as good as they hoped it would be. Those in Yemen live in overcrowded refugee camps under difficult circumstances and many of the girls and women often end up working in the sex trade.

The road ahead is still very long and filled with obstacles and hardship, admits Yasseen, with a tired smile on his scorched and emaciated face.

"We don't have a choice. We have to move on," he said with clear determination. The journey has just started for Yasseen as he is drawn closer to his dreams, that of being a shepherd.

Many start the long walk across the inhospitable desert to Saudi the very next day. Like ghostly figures drifting over the sand with their white t-shirts and sarongs flapping over bony legs, they cross the inhospitable desert to Saudi armed with slippers and a bottle of water.

Despair inhabits those who have no other choice but to leave, wherever the destination, whatever the dangers.

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7017240437

IMPROVING PROTECTION OF MIGRANTS AND OTHER VULNERABLE GROUPS TRAVELLING THROUGH SOMALILAND AND PUNTLAND TO THE GULF STATES

Mission with Regional Functions for East & Central Africa Church Road—off Rhapta Rd., Westlands.
PO Box 55040-00200 Nairobi
Tel: +254 20 444 4174 Fax: +254 20 4449 577
email: MRFnairobi@iom.int URL: http://eastandcentralafrica.iom.int

For further information, please contact: Elena Giannini
Mixed Migration Program
Support Officer
IOM Hargeisa
egiannini@iom.int

Background

Every year, tens of thousands of migrants and refugees make the hazardous journey from their place of origin through the North East region of Somalia, Puntland, and onwards across the Gulf of Aden. There are various motivations for this movement, including flight from persecution and human rights violations as well as the desire to access better economic opportunities, which is what provides its “mixed” character.

Many die during the journey, while others are subjected to abuse and injury at the hands of unscrupulous smugglers. Despite the inherent dangers, the number of persons attempting the crossing from Puntland to Yemen has increased significantly. In 2006, 22,000 persons were reported to have crossed to Yemen. In 2007, figures from UNHCR Yemen indicate that approximately 29,000 persons attempted the crossing, of whom more than a thousand perished.

The international community and Somali regional authorities recognise
the enormous challenges this raises for States in the region, yet also that the humanitarian and economic causes and consequences must be addressed. Somaliland represents one of the main transit areas for many migrants fro Ethiopia and South Central Somalia. One of the main route crosses Somaliland for migrants coming from Ethiopia on their journey to Puntland and Yemen. This route is mostly taken by Ethiopians from the highlands as well as a proportion of Ethiopians from the northern part of the lowlands.

Migrants and refugees use a network of well-organised smugglers as they travel from hubs in Ethiopia, across the border into Somaliland and onwards towards Bossaso. Transit points along the route, notably Hargeisa and Bura’o, act as areas where some persons seek employment for some weeks or months to earn enough money to be smuggled to the next stage.

Passage to Yemen via Djibouti, either through Somaliland by road, by boat from places near Berbera, or directly by road from Ethiopia, has been a main route for migrants and refugees traveling from the eastern part of Ethiopia. More recently, increasing numbers of Somalis are also using this route even though the distance is greater than through Bossaso, arguably because there is increasing awareness of the dangers involved in the Bossaso crossing.

The Djibouti route became more popular following two bomb explosions in areas frequented by Ethiopian migrants and refugees in Bossaso in early February 2008. Once in Djibouti, migrants and refugees use the town of Arhibe as a transit point, staying for as many as three months to earn funds for the next leg of their journey, across to Yemen.

In March 2008, a group of Ethiopians and Somalis from South Central Somalia were detained by the Somaliland authorities in Borama. Interviews conducted by UNHCR revealed that the Somalis had used the Berbera area as an exit point for crossing to Yemen, citing the difficulties of crossing the border into Djibouti.

The migration routes through Somaliland are continuously changing and recent developments along the route and increased difficulties in Puntland force migrants to improvise. IOM expects the establishment of new routes and the development of new links between existing routes.

Improving Protection of Migrants and Other Vulnerable Groups

The aim of the proposed activities is to provide an immediate response to the mixed migratory flow of irregular migrants and asylum seekers from Ethiopia and Somalia to Bossaso on route to Yemen (from where many plan to continue to other Gulf States or Europe).

http://nairobi.iom.int/Info_Sheets/NEW|0FORMAT/Forced|0Migration/Asylum/Improving|0refugee|0protection|0Somaliland|0and|0Puntland.pdf

Replies:

Al-Shabab Implements its Encirclement Strategy [Intelligence Update] - By mb January 8, 2010 at 06:54:55 PM

You must register before you can post on this board. You can register here.

Post a reply: News archives

Username:
Password:
Email:
Subject:
Message:

Link Name:
Link URL:
Image URL: