Society for Humanitarian Solidarity monitor about a third of Yemen's coastline, picking up survivors, providing emergency care
LONDON (AlertNet) - Every year thousands of people fleeing hunger and violence in the Horn of Africa make the treacherous sea crossing to Yemen. Many drown, sometimes thrown overboard by unscrupulous people smugglers.
Those who make it often arrive in a terrible state - weak, ill and dehydrated. A small aid group which patrols the coast to help new arrivals has now been recognised for its bravery by the U.N. refugee agency, winning this year’s Nansen Refugee Award.
Staff from Society for Humanitarian Solidarity (SHS) monitor about a third of Yemen's 2,000 kilometre-long coastline, picking up survivors, providing emergency care and burying those who have died during the crossing.
Some survivors are very traumatised, having been beaten or abused during the voyage.
So far this year around 60,000 people have made the sea crossing to Yemen – higher than the total for all of 2010, the U.N. refugee agency said.
“Thousands of refugees owe their survival to the people working for the Society for Humanitarian Solidarity,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said.
"It is difficult to find a more committed, more competent and brave NGO," he was quoted as saying by Middle East Online.
"This organisation has demonstrated an enormous courage ... it is an example of how civil society can play a dramatic role."
The Nansen award was set up in 1954 in honour of the first U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Fridtjof Nansen, to mark outstanding work on behalf of refugees. The prize is worth $100,000.
Nasser Salim Ali Al-Hamairy, who founded SHS in 1995, said in an interview with UNHCR that the famine in Somalia had increased the flow of refugees with up to seven boats arriving on Yemen’s shores every day.
He said staff began their patrols at 4am, scouring the coast for new arrivals and providing them with food, drink, clothing and emergency medical care. They also helped look for anyone who was missing and occasionally even dived into the water to rescue people.
But Al-Hamairy said many of those who leave Somalia for Yemen never make it. Some wash up dead on the beaches and others are eaten by sharks in the sea.
He called on aid organisations in Somalia to boost their efforts to support people displaced inside the country so that they don’t risk their lives attempting the sea-crossing.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
