In March of this year, OLLAA reported on “a horrific fire at a detention facility in Sana’a, Yemen,” which killed hundreds of Ethiopian political refugees and some migrants, most of whom were Oromo. Arab News reported that “the Houthi militia admitted that tear gas fired by guards into a migrant detention center caused the fire that killed at least 45 people – mostly Ethiopian – and wounded more than 200.”This is not the whole story. Independently unconfirmed reports from survivors and families had told OLLAA’s team that the death toll was more than 500. In March, OLLAA reported that sources recounted the Houthis “sealing hundreds of refugees inside a hangar on the detention center compound and fired a wave of unidentified projectiles, which subsequently started the blaze.”
Another incident recounts an Ethiopian survivor working at a health facility in Saada governorate in April 2020 when Houthi fighters forced them to the Saudi border. As reported by Human Rights Watch, the survivor stated the following: “The Houthis were pushing us from behind. We tried to run in front of them but in front of us there was a mountain. There were people shooting from the top of the mountain, from the Saudi base and they were firing on us from there and they were firing behind, from the Houthi side, so we stayed in between the mountains. They were firing bullets behind us and then from the Saudi base they were firing too and so a lot of people were injured and killed.”
Under pre-COVID conditions, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated that nearly 140,000 migrants arrived in Yemen in 2019, many trying to cross the border into Saudi Arabia, and many of them political refugees. This continues to be a perilous journey for refugees and migrants in the Horn of Africa, as they expose themselves, in Yemen, to networks of smugglers, traffickers, and authorities that kidnap, detain, and beat Ethiopians, extorting them or their families for money. In 2018, for example, Human Rights Watch “found that Yemeni government officials had tortured, raped, and executed migrants and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa in a detention center in the southern port city of Aden.”
As reported by Arab News, “in recent years, due to political and economic instability and climate change that have caused deadly droughts in the Horn of Africa, the number of migrants traveling to Yemen has increased.” The global pandemic may have temporarily decreased the number of migrants crossing into Yemen, and then into Saudi Arabia, but thousands are still making the journey. Those numbers can only be expected to spike as the violence in Tigray spills out into the rest of Ethiopia, especially into Oromia.
Rampant corruption within the Yemeni government fuels the dire mistreatment of Ethiopian refugees and migrants, as those caught in-country are exploited for thousands of dollars, or whatever they have. Their possessions are stripped from them and they are placed in squalid detention centers, either in Yemen or just over the border in Saudi Arabia.
The Ethiopian government needs to stand up for its people. The UN must launch proper investigations and demand action, along with Human Rights Watch and other organizations within the region. As violence grows within Ethiopia, the humanitarian crisis – including widespread migration out of Ethiopia due to political and ethnic violence, especially upon Oromos – will intensify. The violence must stop, and the bloodshed is in the hands of the international community.