Somalia repatriates 1 000 illegals

2006-10-09 07:25

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.

Region's interior minister Mohamed Abdi Habsade said 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.

A resident Sahal Abdi said the immigrants were taken to villages in the Ethiopian area of Galadi on the border with Somalia.

Puntland's deputy police chief Abdiaziz Sa'id Ga'amey said that for the past 24 hours, police had 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.

Somalia 'a major hub for smugglers'

A September 25 government order banned human smuggling.

Ga'amey, who headed a special unit investigating illegal immigration, said authorities were going after traffickers and the owners of the boats used to ferry the migrants across the Gulf.

On Friday, the United Nations refugee agency said that northeastern Somalia had become a major hub for smugglers taking illegal immigrants to Yemen.

Most of the immigrants were from Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan, escaping drought, insecurity and economic hardship in their countries.

The agency said Yemen was very hospitable to refugees, being one of the few countries in the region that had signed an international refugee convention. Yemen hosted more than 88 000 registered refugees, of whom 84 000 were Somalis.

Bossaso 'at the centre of smuggling'

In September, the UN refugee agency found that as many as 85% 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, had been at the centre of the smuggling, but there were other departure points along Puntland's 700km coastline.

Bossaso was about 1 120km northeast of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu.

According to the agency, smuggling of illegal immigrants usually began in September after the sailing season started in the Gulf of Aden and ended in March.

At least 54 people had died trying to get across to Yemen from Somalia and another 60 had gone missing since the sailing season began in September.

It said that over the same period, more than 3 500 people were smuggled across the Gulf of Aden in several dozen boats. In recent days, the smuggling fee had gone up to $70, from $50.

- AP