IOM: 7000 migrants fled to Yemen each month

SANAA, May 8 (YPA) – The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday that nearly 100,000 migrants fled last year to Yemen, itself gripped by war and impending famine, to escape poverty and violence at home.

Some 7,000 migrants entered Yemen each month, with the total number of arrivals in 2017 reaching near 100,000, the IOM added.

The report stated that migrants often leave their homes on foot and walk through Djibouti, and from there, they take boats across the Gulf of Aden to the provinces Aden, Lahj, Shabwa, and Hadramaut in Yemen, then trying to move northward to the borders of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The report revealed that many migrants suffer at the hands of cruel smugglers and other criminals, including physical and sexual abuse, torture for ransom, and arbitrary detention for long periods of time, forced labour for no pay and even death.

Human Rights Watch last month released a report documenting Yemeni government employees who had “tortured, raped, and executed” migrants and asylum seekers at the Buraika migrant detention facility in the southern province of Aden.

E.M