Google Alert - Mogadishu 05, Dec.06 – Hundreds of Somali illegal immigrants risk their lives making hazardous voyages to reach Yemen with provisional boats in search of job opportunities. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has revealed that more than 633 Somali migrants crossing to Yemen were eaten by sharks in the Red Sea, adding that a number more than that of Ethiopian voyagers were also eaten in the Red Sea that links Somalia’s northeast provinces to Yemen.
UN refugee agency indicated that more than 22,000 Somali migrants that started their adventurous voyage from the port city of Bosaso in the Somalia’s semiautonomous region of Puntland have penetrated Yemen in past three months. Those Somalis have reportedly reached Yemen by 188 fishing boats, which were threatened by horrendous sea waves.
Many of these immigrants allege that they preferred the adventurous sea trips to reach Yemen to find jobs or cross to Saudi Arabia where they believe is the land of job opportunities rather than lingering in their homeland which has been in political challenge and civil wars in the past 16 years.
UNHCR said within this year large numbers of Somali refugees were settled in a refugee camp in Yemen where more 75,000 refugees were already there, adding the number of migrants illegally entering Yemen from Somalia has doubled.
The agency indicates most Somali immigrants running from the country assert that the political change in the country has entirely harmed their livelihoods as fears that Union of Islamic Courts Council and Ethiopian backed government based in the country’s southern part have escalated.
The Somali impotent government and powerful Islamists are due to meet in Sudan in mid December to negotiate on the country’s power sharing. In the past, peace talks between the two sides ended in failure following uncompromising conditions before the talks opened.