Somalia repatriates over 1,000 Ethiopians
Oct 08, 2006 (BAIDOA) — Authorities in northeastern Somalia on Sunday repatriated more than 1,000 Ethiopians whom smugglers were preparing to take across the Gulf of Aden to the promise of jobs and a better life in the Middle East.
The 1,370 migrants were sent home in the first wave of a government crackdown on the channel of illegal immigration running through Somalia’s autonomous region of Puntland, said the region’s interior minister, Mohamed Abdi Habsade.
The immigrants were taken to villages in the Ethiopian area of Galadi on the border with Somalia, a resident, Sahal Abdi, told The Associated Press by telephone.
Over the past 24 hours, police have rounded up another 236 Ethiopian immigrants and sent 72 Somalis back to their homes in other parts of the country after they were caught trying to board boats to Yemen, said Puntland’s Deputy Police Chief Col. Abdiaziz Sa’id Ga’amey.
A Sept. 25 government order banned human smuggling.
Ga’amey, who heads a special unit investigating illegal immigration, said authorities are going after traffickers and the owners of the boats used to ferry the migrants across the Gulf.
On Friday, the U.N. refugee agency said that northeastern Somalia has become a major hub for smugglers taking illegal immigrants to Yemen. Most of the immigrants are from Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan, escaping drought, insecurity and economic hardship in their countries.
Yemen is very hospitable to refugees, being one of the few countries in the region that have signed an international refugee convention, the agency said. Yemen hosts more than 88,000 registered refugees, of whom 84,000 are Somalis.
In September, the U.N. refugee agency found that as many as 85 percent of the refugees arriving in Yemen expected to go on to richer Gulf states.
The agency said that Bossaso, the region’s main port city, has been at the center of the smuggling, but there are other departure points along Puntland’s 700-kilometer (435-mile) coastline. Bossaso is about 1,120 kilometers (700 miles) northeast of Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu.
Smuggling of illegal immigrants usually begins in September when the sailing season starts in the Gulf of Aden and ends in March, the agency said.
At least 54 people have died trying to get across to Yemen from Somalia and another 60 have gone missing since the sailing season began in September. Over the same period, more than 3,500 people were smuggled across the Gulf of Aden in several dozen boats, the agency said.
In recent days, the smuggling fee has gone up to US$70 (A55), from US$50 (A40), the agency said.
(AP/ST)