Feature
|
That’s not the way it was supposed to turn out. The human smugglers have a smoothly-functioning network that recruits customers in lawless southern Somalia and in Ethiopia with tales of riches or safety abroad, then moves them by bus or by truck along the route to the sea.
“They say the way is very easy to get across to Yemen and Saudi Arabia,” says Fatouma Ali, 21, whose innocent young face and demeanour belie the will of steel it must have taken to come this far from home. She ran out of money and has been stuck in Bossaso for six months, unable even to get the money together to return home.
As for her life on the streets of Bossaso, she says, without elaboration: “the women have problems.” Some fall into prostitution, reportedly charging as little as 13 U.S. cents for their services.
The International Organization for Migration is now seeking funding to launch a humanitarian repatriation to take back home those Ethiopians who want to go.
But among many others, a sense of fatalism, combined with the desperation of violence, poverty and increasing drought in the Horn of Africa, keeps the people-smugglers in business. Miliyar, a 22-year-old Ethiopian walking along the road south of Bossaso, intent on catching a boat, says in English: “when I am coming from my country, I think two things. I will die or I will get a better life.”
If they reach Yemen, Somalis get automatic refugee status as many are fleeing violent conflict, though not all apply for it. Ethiopians are not automatically considered refugees, but can have their cases heard individually. There are currently more than 80,000 registered refugees in Yemen, of whom 75,000 are Somalis. But it is estimated that there are hundreds of thousands more in the country, and many of those who arrive by sea continue north from Yemen to find work elsewhere in the Middle East.
Bossaso and Puntland authorities insist they don’t have the manpower or equipment to fight the smugglers. Even locking them up fails to discourage their customers, insists Mayor Khadar.
“If we tell the Ethiopians the boat is 100 kilometres away, they will walk by foot and wait for the people-smugglers to get out of jail,” he says.
A complicating element is that a number of the Ethiopians may actually be in need of political asylum in the aftermath of post-election strife last year.
“We need a third hand to take care of them,” says divisional police commander Col. Aidid Ahmen Nur. “If we capture all these people and return them back, they may be killed or have political problems. We can’t return them home and we can’t keep them here.”
He insists Puntland would be willing to offer asylum if the international community provided support. “If you help us, we can keep them as refugees,” Col. Aidid says. “We can give them peace and keep anyone from harming them.”
In fact, “UNHCR is working with the relevant local authorities to initiate refugee status determination in Puntland, so that refugees are not obliged to go to Hargeisa if they don’t want to,” says Guillermo Bettocchi, UNHCR Representative for Somalia based in Nairobi.
Jemal, a 27-year-old Ethiopian student who says he was active in the Ethiopian opposition and saw many of his friends thrown in prison, fled his homeland on the advice of his father, who is a doctor in Europe. However, he’s apprehensive about going to Hargeisa, citing fears there are Ethiopian security agents in the city. All the same, he wants to apply for recognition as a refugee; for now he’s one of the thousands stuck in Bossaso.
“All my choices are bad,” he says with resignation. “To go back to Ethiopia and be put in prison, or to put myself in danger in the sea and die, or stay here and hope my family will continue to send me money.”
“We hope to be in a position soon to help those Ethiopians in Puntland, like Jemal, who say they are fleeing persecution,” says Bettocchi.
For now, UNHCR will continue to work closely with local and international humanitarian agencies, as well as the Puntland and Bossaso governments, “to try to meet the most basic humanitarian needs of the migrants and asylum seekers,” Bettocchi says, “and to try to end this tragic flow of people.”
ETHIOMEDIA.COM – ETHIOPIA’S PREMIER NEWS AND VIEWS WEBSITE
© COPYRIGHT 20001-2006ETHIOMEDIA.COM. EMAIL: [email protected]