ICER Action Alert: Yemen to Deport Eritrean Refugees

ICER  Action Alert: Yemen to Deport Eritrean Refugees

International Commission on Eritrean Refugees

September 28, 2012    Volume 2012,   Number 15


According Yemeni News Agency, SABA Yemeni and Eritrean officials discussed last Saturday regarding security issue and the  fishermen operating in and around the territorial waters of both countries. It was also learned that the issues of the refugees was high in the agenda, where the Eritrean side insisted that Eritreans illegal residing in Yemen are to be returned home.  We believe that the proposal was accepted by the Yemini officials. The Yemeni Interior Minister Abdul-Qader Qahtan expressed the burdens and difficulties that his government faces as a result of the illegal immigration from the Horn countries and show his readiness to provide mechanism by which the illegal immigrants are expelled to Eritrea. Yemen has been too unfriendly to the refugees throughout their stay,   keeping many in prison instead of the refugee camps established by the UNHCR.

Following the bilateral meeting held in in Sana on September 22, prison officials continued threatening refugees for deportation to Eritrea.  True to their threats, on September 27, 2012 at about noon New York time, Yemen special force went to the prison compound to get the prisoner/refugees from prison for deportation.  Due to the resistance shown by the prisoners they were unable to remove them forcibly. However, unsuccessful, the authorities promised to come back with yet strong contingent of police force  for their forcible removal and shipment to Eritrea. Both Yemen and Eritrea are violating the international convention on the treatment of Refugees signed in Geneve in 1951 if they went ahead with the deportation.  Sending back the refugees to Eritrea carries a serious risk of long term imprisonments and perhaps death. We urge people of good will to protest the action of the Yemeni government by approaching their respective governments, the NGOs and above all the UNHCR to discourage the government from taking this heinous and inhuman action.


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