Saturday, Oct 11, 2008

Gulf News

Sana'a: A total of 50 Ethiopian illegal immigrants including 10 women are soon to be deported from Yemen, official sources said on Friday.

The immigrants were taken from the Somali refugee camp of Kharaz in Lahj to the immigration office in Aden to complete the process of deportation, sources from the immigration office said. Yemen accepts only Somalis as refugees as it is a signatory of the UN refugee conventions.

The same sources said that about 381 Somali immigrants including 94 women and 17 children arrived on Thursday at the Yemeni coastal area of Ahwar in Abyan province and the coast of Broom in Hadhramout province.

Hundreds of would-be immigrants have been reportedly drowned in the sea and others have gone missing this year as smugglers forced them to jump from the boats while still far from the Yemeni shore.

Meanwhile, local residents and fishermen in Ahwar demanded urgent action against what they call an environmental problem caused by the dead bodies of African immigrants which are discovered almost daily in their coasts.

"The fishermen, the local residents, and the coastguards complain from this problem. Even those bodies which are buried nearby are quickly unearthed because of the nature of the coasts," Khalid Al Mahdi, a journalist-photographer, told Gulf News.

© Gulf News 2008. All rights reserved.

 

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