Yemeni refugees languish at camp in Djibouti

Ashwaq, 12, rested outside her family’s tent at the Markazi refugee camp in Obock, northern Djibouti. PHOTOS BY MOSA’AB ELSHAMY • ASSOCIATED PRESS

By Patrick J. McDonnell
Thursday, May 21, 2015

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OBOCK, Djibouti – They escaped snipers, aerial bombardment and shelling back home in Yemen, only to end up facing a new and bewildering struggle: surviving as refugees on a remote coastal stretch of Djibouti, where shelter from a punishing sun is scarce and the shrieks of hyenas and jackals echo in the evenings.

“It seems we ran away from death just to die slowly here,” said Rasha Abdullah, a 27-year-old from the embattled Yemeni port city of Aden, cradling her barefoot daughter, Nourhan, 2, at a rudimentary camp. “In Aden, at least we only died once. Here we die 100 times.”

These are the Middle East’s newest refugees — thousands of civilians fleeing the civil war that has engulfed Yemen, just a few miles across the Gulf of Aden from Djibouti, a strategically situated but impoverished African nation that houses a major U.S. military base. The war in Yemen has reverberated profoundly in Djibouti.

Besides hosting a new flow of refugees, who mostly arrive via boats across the gulf, Djibouti was also a logistics hub for a massive relief effort to Yemen during a five-day cease-fire. The truce ended Sunday, bringing renewed bombardment — and more refugees.

The fighting in Yemen has forced almost half a million people to flee their homes, according to the United Nations. Most have remained in the country, internally displaced, often trapped. About 30,000 people — Yemenis and foreign nationals, including U.S. citizens — have left Yemen since a Saudi-led bombing campaign against rebels challenging the Yemeni government began in March, the U.N. says.

But officials fear the relative trickle of Yemenis escaping the country could become a torrent now that the oft-broken truce is over.

Before the cease-fire, boatloads of refugees regularly embarked from Aden, a scene of fierce battles between Houthi rebels based in the north and various southern militias. Refugees said they huddled in the port area of Aden waiting for days for boats out, often as gun battles raged. Vessel skippers charged exorbitant rates of $200 or more for the trip to Djibouti, they said. The journey across the gulf can be hazardous.

Early this month, as many as 40 Yemeni civilians seeking to escape Aden by sea were reported killed when shells hit their boat. Who fired remained unclear.

‘We deserve … better’

Among the Yemenis interviewed in Djibouti, there appears to be little hope that the conflict in their homeland will end anytime soon.

The Markazi refugee camp, a sprawling expanse of canvas tents provided by the United Nations, is outside the port town of Obock, an almost four-hour drive north of Djibouti city through a barren landscape of volcanic rocks and stunted shrubs marked by occasional goat-herder shanties and camels. It is home to about 500 Yemenis, the U.N. said, but the number is expected to rise. Most Yemenis who have come to Djibouti rent apartments and hotel rooms or stay with friends or relatives.

U.N. officials say they are doing what they can to make the camp livable. But conditions remain primitive. Doctors identified 18 cases of moderate or acute malnutrition among children younger than 5, the U.N. said.

Many of the Yemenis who fled here left relatively stable, middle-class lives. A few weeks ago, they were living in air-conditioned homes and apartments in Aden, a former English colonial outpost that used to bustle with street life, cafes and restaurants. The war made it perilous to leave the house, refugees said, and the shelling and bombardment meant being inside wasn’t necessarily safe either.

“We knew we left our homes behind to save our lives,” said Shareen Hassan, 27, a mother of three. “But, really, we deserve something better than this.”

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