African Migrants Thrown Overboard by Smugglers Along Route to Yemen
Migrants pack onto the boats of smugglers for a chance to reach Yemen for employment.
For the third time in the past six months, migrants crossing from Djibouti to Yemen were thrown overboard into the sea between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula after claims of overcrowding.
On 3 March, 80 out of the 200 migrants aboard a smugglers’ boat were thrown overboard, some beaten with metal bars to force them off. Many were making the journey in hopes of finding work in labor, domestic servitude, and animal herding in Yemen; the group included men, women, and children.
Survivors were treated at an I.O.M. center in Djibouti, a branch of the leading intergovernmental organization in the field of migration which ensures migrants access to health services, food, shelter, and social support.
African migrants crossing this short strip of the Red Sea often have little to no information about the war-torn conditions into which they are entering in Yemen. According to the UN, over 100,000 Ethiopians, Somalis, and other East Africans board smuggler boats, on which they are put at risk in the hands of traffickers who reportedly tortue and sexually abuse them.
Yemeni authorities are also known to stigmatize African migrants as carriers of disease. A Yemen researcher Afrah Nasser of the Human Rights Watch states “Covid is just one tragedy inside so many other tragedies that these migrants are facing.” Made scapegoats for Yemen’s Coronavirus outbreak, migrants are driven back at gunpoint by Iran-backed Houthi in areas known as “slaughter valleys” where there is limited access to aid, food, or water.
Though border closings in the pandemic reduced the flow of migrants from Africa into Yemen by thousands, still some 15,000 remain in the perilous conditions exacerbated by traffickers, smugglers, and war. After the most recent case of smugglers throwing migrants overboard, director general of the I.O.M. wrote, “Prosecuting traffickers and smugglers who prey on the vulnerabilities of migrants must be a priority.”
Crossing the sea from Djibouti allows for the shortest route to Yemen.