AL-MUKALLA: The Saudi-led coalition has accused Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen of forcing hundreds of African migrants to storm the Kingdom’s southern borders.
Col. Turki Al-Maliki told Al Arabiya TV that videos circulating on social media showing armed Houthis firing live bullets at African migrants in the northern Yemini province of Saada, proved that the militia was trying to undermine Saudi border security while attempting to provoke condemnation of the Kingdom from international rights organizations.
“The video showed the militia intentionally forced those migrants into heading into the Kingdom,” he said, adding that the Houthis also wanted to fuel Saudi public fears over the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) into the country.
“In all cases, we deal with those infiltrators or migrants according to the humanitarian principles and regulations in the Kingdom,” Al-Maliki said.
The internationally recognized government in Yemen has recently come under heavy public pressure to stem the flow of thousands of migrants into the country from the Horn of Africa region, due to concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic.
A senior government official in Aden told Arab News that the Yemeni government was unable to effectively tackle the situation because its coastguard authority was understaffed.
“This is a big problem that we cannot handle on our own. We suggested to the UN organizations to collect the African migrants from the shores and send them to Kharaz refugee camp in Lahj. We cannot do anything to stop them from coming to Yemen,” the official added.
Yemen’s coastguard authority crumbled at the beginning of Houthi military expansion in early 2015, leaving the country’s long Red Sea and Arabian Sea coastline vulnerable to smuggling operations.
The Saudi-led coalition has trained hundreds of Yemeni coastguards and provided them with fast boats to patrol the coastal area between Hadramout and Mahra.
Despite the war in Yemen that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, African migrants continue to use the country as a transit point before reaching Saudi Arabia, their final destination.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated that up to 10,000 African migrants arrived in Yemen in February and it expects the numbers to be similar for March.
The organization’s medical teams that operate around Yemen’s southern coasts to treat African migrants have so far not reported any cases of COVID-19.
“Most of them are suffering from exhaustion, hunger and problems in their joints due to walking,” an IOM doctor in Yemen told Arab News.
Houthis forcing migrants to storm Saudi borders, says Al-Maliki
https://arab.news/6zzrc
Houthis forcing migrants to storm Saudi borders, says Al-Maliki
- The Saudi-led coalition has trained hundreds of Yemeni coastguards and provided them with fast boats to patrol the coastal area between Hadramout and Mahra
WEF panel told grassroots aid workers keep Sudan afloat even as conflict puts them at risk
- Speakers warned that without urgent action to protect humanitarian access and support local responders, Sudan’s crisis will continue to deepen and destabilize the wider region
LONDON: Grassroots Sudanese aid groups are filling critical humanitarian gaps left by limited international access, but their volunteers are facing hunger, arrest and deadly risks as the conflict enters its fourth year, speakers warned at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.
More than 20 million people in Sudan are facing acute hunger, while more than 11 million have been displaced, making it the largest displacement crisis in the world. As fighting continues and access for international agencies tightens, community-led networks have become a primary lifeline for civilians across the country.
“We need to strengthen local capacity and support community-led solutions like Emergency Response Rooms and mutual aid groups, with a more localized and decolonized humanitarian response,” said Hanin Ahmed, a Sudanese activist and Emergency Response Room leader.
Ahmed described how volunteers were delivering food, medical support and protection services in areas that international organizations struggled to reach. However, she warned that these efforts came at immense personal cost.
Volunteers are often displaced themselves, facing food insecurity, arrest, kidnapping, and in some cases, killing by the warring parties. Famine, she said, was no longer confined to traditionally affected regions.
“There is famine not only in Darfur, but also in Khartoum, the capital,” Ahmed told the panel, pointing to widespread unemployment, disease outbreaks, and rising cases of gender-based violence across multiple states.
Despite the scale of the crisis, Ahmed emphasized that Sudanese communities retained both the willingness and capacity to recover if adequately supported.
“Sudanese people are willing to resolve this war if supported,” she said.
Panelists stressed that hunger in Sudan was not driven by a lack of aid, but by deliberate barriers to its delivery.
“The story of Sudan’s war is a story of impunity,” said David Miliband, president and chief executive officer of the International Rescue Committee.
“To tackle impunity, we need to challenge restrictions on humanitarian access, end sieges, and address the profiteering that fuels the conflict,” he added.
Miliband said that while humanitarian funding remained critically low, access constraints were the primary factor preventing life-saving assistance from reaching civilians. Only 28 percent of the UN humanitarian appeal for Sudan had been funded, he said, compounding the effects of obstruction on the ground.
Meanwhile, where assistance was available, needs continued to outstrip capacity. Barham Salih, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, described visiting refugee-hosting areas along Sudan’s borders, where people arrived after experiencing extreme violence, deprivation and trauma.
“Ten liters of water per person per day is far below emergency standards,” Salih said.
“Only 16 percent of those who need mental health support are receiving it, and only one in three families in need of shelter actually have access,” he added.
Salih stressed that statistics failed to capture the scale of human suffering. “Behind every number is a human life,” he said, recounting testimonies of abuse, rape and killings from refugees who had crossed the border only hours earlier.
As humanitarian systems inside Sudan continue to falter, the consequences are increasingly felt beyond its borders.
Neighboring countries including Chad, Kenya, Egypt and Uganda are hosting large numbers of Sudanese refugees despite limited infrastructure and resources.
“What starts in Sudan does not stay in Sudan,” Miliband said. “This is a crisis with regional implications.”
While host governments have kept borders open and adopted inclusive policies that allow refugees access to services and livelihoods, panelists warned that generosity alone could not sustain the response without stronger international support.
The discussion in Davos highlighted that Sudan’s humanitarian crisis was shaped not by a lack of solutions, but by who is allowed to deliver aid, where, and under what conditions.
