UNHCR disturbed by deaths of smuggled immigrants

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has expressed concern over the death of at least 75 Somali and Ethiopian would-be immigrants who drowned last week as they were being smuggled to Yemen on boats from Somalia. UNHCR said in a statement on Tuesday that its staff in Yemen had reported that the victims were on board four motorised canoes carrying 369 Africans that had travelled from Bossaso in northeastern Somalia on 1 and 2 September. It quoted survivors as saying that they were forced to jump into the sea and swim to shore. The agency said seventy-five bodies had so far been recovered along the Yemeni coast. It said some 50 survivors who made it to shore were taken to UNHCR's reception centre in Mayfaah, Yemen, where they received shelter and food. The remaining passengers had not been found, but many could have arrived at different parts of the Yemeni coast and decided not to seek the agency's help. The Somalis in the group - now recognised by UNHCR as refugees on a prima facie basis - will be further transported by the agency's partner on the ground, SHS, on a 10-hour trip to Al Kharaz camp near Aden. The camp currently houses some 7,500 Somalis. "This is the latest of many such tragic incidents, many of them unreported, off the coast of Yemen," Ron Redmond, UNHCR spokesman, told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday. "People are drowning not because they have been denied access to protection or to the territory of Yemen, or because they fear interception at sea, but because they are desperate and at the mercy of ruthless smugglers. Nor is there any authority in Bossaso trying to dissuade them from making the perilous journey in the first place," he added. The agency said on 3 March, some 90 people, including women and children, died when a vessel carrying 93 passengers - one of six that had sailed from Bossaso - sank in the Gulf of Aden after developing a technical problem. Only the crew reportedly survived. Some of the Somalis had been severely beaten by the smugglers. A few days later, on 7 March, another 85 people were ordered to jump overboard while still far from the coast. Eighteen drowned. The journey from Bossaso to the Yemeni coast can take up to 48 hours and people arriving in Yemen have told of harrowing experiences in small motorised canoes on rough, shark-infested seas. Beatings take place en route, sometimes simply because people move an inch and destabilise the crowded boats, UNHCR reported. Some passengers decide to jump overboard into the high seas to escape the violence inside the boat, according to the report, while others arrived with severe burns on their body from having been pushed too close to the engines. UNHCR, in collaboration with SHS, had built six shelters, latrines, water reservations and kitchens near Keida on the coast, where many of the smuggled immigrants first arrived. "This latest incident marks the start of calmer weather in the Gulf of Aden, and we fear we could see more tragedies in the coming months," said Redmond. "Most of the migrants normally start coming to Yemen between mid-September and March, when the sea is at its calmest." A group of people reportedly arrived on 17 August and since then, seven boats had been recorded approaching the Yemeni coast, UNHCR said, adding that there were currently some 47,000 Somalis registered with UNHCR as refugees on a prima facie basis in Yemen, although it is estimated that there are hundreds of thousands more in the country. An estimated 95 percent of the new Ethiopian and Somali arrivals - who average 100 a day during September and March, according to some sources - ultimately continue north in search of better economic possibilities elsewhere in the region, the agency said. On 1 September, the UN Independent Expert on the Situation of Human Rights in Somalia, Ghanim Alnajjar, cited trafficking in human beings as one of the common abuses in Somalia. "The lack of coastline monitoring encourages human trafficking, often with fatal consequences for those who seek to leave Somalia for a better life elsewhere, many of whom drown or arrive at their destination only to discover that their hopes for a better life cannot be realised," Alnajjar told a news conference in Nairobi, Kenya following a trip to Somalia. He reiterated his call for the creation of an organisation mandated to safeguard the Somali coastline until Somalia's own authorities developed the capacity to undertake that function.