IOM Sounds Alarm About Migrants In Yemen Being Subjected To Harassment Over COVID-19

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th July, 2020) Tens of thousands of migrants stranded in Yemen experience violence and harassment as local communities stigmatize them as carriers of the coronavirus, the International Organization for Migration said in a press release on Tuesday.

According to the UN migration agency, at least 14,500 � and likely a big lot more of � migrants today are estimated to be stranded in Yemen's Aden, Marib, Lahj and Saada provinces after the government blocked the cross-country transit route.

"For nearly six years, Yemen has been an extremely unsafe place to be a migrant. COVID-19 has made this situation worse - migrants are scapegoated as carriers of the virus and, as a result, suffer exclusion and violence," IOM Chief of Mission in Yemen Christa Rottensteiner said, as quoted in the press release.

The agency has collected first-hand evidence from the migrants to conclude that such violence includes verbal and physical harassment, increased detention, movement restrictions as well as forced movements to areas far from main urban centers or services.

In addition, many, if not most, of migrants had endured abuses at the hands of smugglers and traffickers, including torture and forced labor, according to the press release.

The IOM said it was now receiving more requests form migrants to provide them with assistance to return home, which, due to sizable lack of funding, it was unable to provide.

�In May, the organization launched an appeal for $155 million for assistance to over 5.3 million displaced people and migrants in Yemen, which at this point is underfunded by 50 percent, according to Rottensteiner.

Yemen has for decades been wrecked by internal conflicts. In 1990, the southern Democratic Republic of Yemen and the northern Yemen Arab Republic united into what is Yemen today. The south has been since seeking secession. The military confrontation between the north and south has been ongoing in parallel with the conflict between the internationally recognized Yemeni government and the Houthi militia. It has intensified since 2015, when Saudi Arabia joined the military action on the government's side.

The United Nations has repeatedly called Yemen the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with an estimated 24 million people � over 80 percent of the country's population � in acute need of aid.