YEMEN: Third country resettlement slowing - UNHCR
SANAA, 1 February 2010 (IRIN) - Deteriorating security in Yemen since August 2009 has negatively affected efforts by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and recipient governments to resettle refugees.
Some third country governments were reluctant to send missions to Yemen to process resettlement cases, UNHCR external relations officer in Sanaa Andrew Knight told IRIN.
He said only 74 persons had left Yemen for resettlement in other countries between August and December 2009, and feared this heralded “just the beginning of the slowdown”.
Thousands of refugees needed to be resettled in third countries, he said.
In recent months Yemen has seen a flare-up in fighting with Houthi-led Shia rebels in the north, political unrest in the south and a growing threat from al-Qaeda militants in the east.
A UNHCR Yemen Factsheet dated December 2009 said 375 refugees, mainly from Somalia and Iraq, had been resettled in third countries since the beginning of 2009.
UNHCR had aimed to submit 650 cases for resettlement in 2009, Knight said, adding: "A significant portion of refugees are seeking resettlement due to the lack of local integration prospects for many, and lack of opportunities for voluntary repatriation."
According to UNHCR, there are three options for refugees: voluntary repatriation; local integration; or resettlement in a third country.
Identifying the most vulnerable
One of UNHCR's main roles is to identify vulnerable cases (for example, those who face protection problems in their country of asylum) and refer them to third countries. “It is the third country which decides whether to accept a refugee for resettlement," Knight said.
Knight said other criteria for resettlement included whether vulnerable refugees were single women, unaccompanied children, the elderly, survivors of violence and torture, or those with serious medical conditions that could not be treated in the country of asylum.
He said USA and Canada had received the most refugees from Yemen, followed by Sweden, Norway and the UK. "Portugal has also recently expressed an interest in receiving refugees from Yemen," he said.
According to UNHCR, there were 170,854 registered refugees in Yemen by the end of 2009, most of whom came from the Horn of Africa, fleeing conflict, drought and/or poverty. On 18 January 2009, the government announced a two-month refugee-registration deadline.
Homeless, sick, deprived
"Women and children constitute the majority of Somali refugees in Yemen. Some mothers work for YR 20,000 [about US$95] a month, which is not enough for a family to pay the rent and cover basic necessities. They endure very poor living conditions and their children are deprived of education," Mohammed Abdi Adam, chairman of the Somali Refugee Community Development Committee (SRCDC) in Yemen, told IRIN.
“For the past three months I have been claiming resettlement in the US where I can get shelter for me and my six children,” Fatma Ahmad, a 32-year-old Somali refugee, told IRIN.
"We have no home. We live with friends in an apartment in Hayel Street, western Sanaa. My husband is jailed in Hodeida city [northern Yemen], leaving us without a breadwinner," she said.
Holding a medical report in his hand, 45-year-old Mohammed Othman from the Oromia region of Ethiopia told IRIN: "I have chronic problems in my collar-bone and backbone and my condition is getting worse by the day… In this report, local doctors recommended that I should travel abroad for treatment due to lack of expertise and money in Yemen,” Othman said.
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Theme(s): (IRIN) Aid Policy, (IRIN) Health & Nutrition, (IRIN) Refugees/IDPs
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