Houthi brutal practices force Ethiopian refugees to return home
English - Saturday 15 October 2022 الساعة 09:02 am
Sana'a, NewsYemen, private:
“I want to go back to my country,” said Abiba, a 27-year-old Ethiopian refugee, after spending years in Sanaa, which is under the control of the Houthi militia - the Iranian arm in Yemen.
Abiba, one of a group of Ethiopian refugees in Yemen, decided to leave Sanaa for their country of origin, as part of the return project implemented by the International Organization for Migration, to escape the violations and harassment practiced by the Houthi militia against African refugees.
Before her return, the Ethiopian young woman told NewsYemen that "her illegal migration journey to the Yemeni coast was dangerous, during which she lost her sister."
Abiba's joy was greater than the joy of the rest of the 129 refugees who left with her for Ethiopia, as she will meet her eight-year-old child, whom she left there before her dangerous journey with her sister to Yemen.
"Abiba" looked better than her 18-year-old departed friend Itinch, who was beaten by smugglers from inside Djibouti before she boarded the death boat to reach the Yemeni coast.
Escape from Hell
The International Organization for Migration stresses that in recent years many migrants have been eager to return home. They often resort to the same smuggling networks to return on perilous journeys on the same boats they arrived in.
Thousands of migrants traveled by boat from Yemen to Djibouti and Somalia this year, and more than 1,800 migrants stranded in Aden and Marib have managed to leave on voluntary humanitarian return flights so far this year, the International Organization for Migration's Displacement Tracking Matrix reports.
The refugees' choice to return cannot be separated from the violations they were subjected to by the Houthi militia. In March 2021. The militia committed a mass holocaust against more than 500 African refugees in the immigration and passports detention center in Sana'a. It is a crime that came in a general context and systematic practices against African immigrants in Yemen.
After that, the militia broke up a sit-in by the Ethiopian community to demand an international commission of inquiry into the crime, leaving two dead and dozens of detainees, including women.
What was remarkable was the crime of burning refugees, and an attempt to silence them by force. It is the failure of international organizations to fulfill their duty towards these refugees, or even to shed light on this brutal crime in order to ensure that the perpetrators are prosecuted and held accountable.
Subsequently, the Houthi militia forcibly deported hundreds of refugees to areas under the control of the Yemeni government, after they were forced to sign not to return to Sanaa.
Harassment, threats and blackmail
The militia imposed many restrictions on refugees in Sana'a and their areas of control, and prevented granting licenses to them to work or open small businesses to earn a living. And all this in order to force them to join its fronts, which was rejected by many, and prompted them to sit in the open streets and take it as homes for themselves and their families.
Houthi restrictions on the Ethiopians reached the point of restricting their movements and even targeting the places they frequented, as happened last April, closing one of the most famous Ethiopian restaurants in Sana’a known as “Samira” restaurant under flimsy justifications.
The restaurant is more like a popular consulate for Ethiopian immigrants who arrive in Yemen via the Red Sea. In it, the lost find a safe haven after many of them were stranded after what they witnessed of the horrific migration journey and access to the Houthi areas. It also became a forum through which the conditions of refugees, patients and detainees in the prisons of the Houthi militia are monitored. What raised the latter's fears that their pups would deliver the refugees' rights to the world, to shut it down?
Constant bargaining
African refugees in Sana'a are subjected to harassment, ill-treatment and threats by the Houthis, not to mention the forced recruitment to fight in the ranks of the militia.
Sources indicate that the Houthis' bargaining with these refugees is still ongoing, as they are bargained between going to the fighting fronts, or paying large sums of money.
The Houthis use migrants as a means of extortion and making money, as they collect these refugees from different areas under their control to Sana'a. And then they give them the choice between going to fight or communicating with their families in order to transfer an amount of money up to 1500 Saudi riyals.
