Somali refugees outside camps live in squalid conditions in Yemen. Very often more than one family live in one small house A campaign to register Somali refugees with the aim of creating a government database and identifying illegal African migrants is under way in Yemen, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).
Issam al-Mahbashi, who is in charge of refugees at the ministry's Africa Department, told IRIN the registration campaign would help distinguish Somali refugees from African economic migrants.
"There is mixed migration as the smuggling boats coming from Bossaso [in Somalia] carry economic migrants as well as asylum seekers. The latter should be granted refugee status, while the former should return," Al-Mahbashi told IRIN in Sanaa.
The registration process, funded by the European Union, had been agreed with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), he said.
The plan is to have six permanent registration centres around the country. The first one was launched in Sanaa in March and another opened in the port city of Aden this month.
The registration's first phase, which may last six months, involves Somali refugees only. The second phase, which is still under advisement, is to include non-Somali asylum seekers.
The MFA official said the turnout for the registration process was high, adding that the drive had been publicized by UNHCR in different languages via the media and posters.
He further noted that another chance would be given to those who did not register during the first phase.
Temporary campaigns would be conducted to check the identity of any refugees following the first phase. Those who refused to register would be identified while travelling from one governorate to another, according to Al-Mahbashi.
"Anyone who fails to register during that period will be arrested and deported despite being Somali," Al-Mahbashi said.
Andrew Knight, UNHCR's external relations officer in Yemen, said such action would contravene the 1951 Refugee Convention.
Article 33 of the convention, to which Yemen is a signatory, states: "No Contracting State shall expel or return ("refouler") a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion."
Knight has urged the Somalis in Yemen to register.
According to UNHCR, there were 152,693 refugees assisted by UNHCR in Yemen as of 31 May, of whom 143,998 were Somalis, 2,919 Ethiopians and 672 Eritreans.
Al-Mahbashi said there were 750,000 Somali refugees and more than 300,000 African migrants (Ethiopians, Eritreans and others) in Yemen.
According to the World Refugee Survey 2009 by the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, the Yemeni government claims there may be as many as 700,000 Somalis in the country.
Source: IRIN
No comments:
Post a Comment