A growing number of migrants are flocking to Yemen, even as its dire humanitarian crisis deepens, with nearly 150,000 expected to arrive in the war-ravaged country by the end of 2018, AFP reported Tuesday (December 4th).
Yemen remains a major stop on the route for migrants from Africa to wealthy Gulf states, and smugglers are taking advantage of the chaos of the war to evade security checks, the International Organisation for Migration said.
It forecast that migrant arrivals to Yemen would swell 50% this year compared to the some 100,000 people who arrived in the country in 2017.
"We are confident in forecasting migration arrivals to Yemen, a country at war, will reach about 150,000 people this year," IOM spokesman Joel Millman told reporters in Geneva.
He described it as "extraordinary and alarming" that so many people were "crossing a dangerous war zone".
Yemen's conflict, which erupted in late 2014, has brought the impoverished country to the brink of famine, and the UN has described Yemen as the world's worst humanitarian disaster.
But the country remains on an established route for migrants, who typically first travel by land through Djibouti before eventually undergoing perilous boat journeys across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen.
From there, they usually try to make their way to other Gulf nations, often in search of work.
IOM estimated that around 92% of the migrants who have entered Yemen this year are Ethiopian, while the rest are from Somalia.
About 20% of the migrants are minors, "and many of them are unaccompanied", Millman said.
Asked why there would be such a big jump in numbers at a time when Yemen is spiralling ever deeper into despair, he said it appeared smugglers were actually using the conflict and violence "as marketing points".
