Yemenis fleeing to Saudi lands seeking better life

Yaseen Abdullah, 30, of Taiz is living in Al-Hodeidah governorate under intolerable conditions. He is married and has one daughter. He decided to immigrate to Saudi Arabia searching for better jobs, better opportunities, and improve the quality of his life. He saw a lot of people talking about their dangerous journey into Saudi Arabia and he noticed many people returned home with new cars and money. This is what encouraged him to leave his family and join others in traveling to Saudi Arabia.    
  Abdullah went to Harradh city that is located in the border of the Saudi Arabia and Yemen. In Harradh, qat smugglers often take Yemenis into Saudi Arabia. He paid YR 10 thousand for one of the smugglers who offered to take him into the country. “I waited for this smuggler to gather other people, all trying to sneak into Saudi Arabia,” he said. These traffickers are very known and aware of hidden routes that extend into Saudi territory. “They knew every detail about the ways for crossing the borders undetected,” he added. Abdullah and the rest of the group with the smuggler started moving at night around 02:00 am. “In this time most of Saudi border guards change their shifts and there will be a time to pass without obstacles,” noted Abdullah.  The Saudi border guards erected an electric fence in the areas and roads that are known to be used by smugglers. “But there are some roads that usually smugglers used that go through deep valleys,” he said. There were children and women in the group like any another cluster that entering Saudi lands illegally looking for better job or working as beggars. “We are tired of being poor and we will try everything that helps us survive in this life,” said Abdullah as tears fell from his eyes.   After they entered the borders, they walked through many farms there. After that another smuggler was waiting for them behind those farms. They paid him 150 Saudi Riyals and rode the car. Those smugglers have contacts with Saudi soldiers in some check points. “They let us go after they receive money from the smugglers,” he claimed. Abdullah pointed that there is a Saudi group appointed to fight the entrance of Yemenis to the Saudi lands illegally. This group called “Al-Mujaheden”. “They are very cruel and they kill anyone trying to flee from them,” he said.  After the heartbreaking journey, most of the people who enter Saudi lands are captured by the Saudi police and deported back to Yemen.  “In the first attempt of entering, I spent three months there working in many things like cars workshops but I have been captured by police and they deported me back to Harradh city,” he added. Abdullah is one of many Yemenis who are suffering from bad living conditions and unemployment. They are fleeing to Saudi Arabia and took the risky fatal journey to arrive there hoping and dreaming of a better life. “This is the fifth time that I will try to go there, and I will go back again and again,” he confirmed. In the time of Somalis fleeing to Yemen from the war and conflicts in their country, Yemenis are fleeing to Saudi Arabia seeking and suffering to getting better life that they didn’t find it in their homeland. The increase of human trafficking from Yemen to Saudi Arabia has become as a phenomena and it is consider it a passing center to the others countries.   In the recent period, the size of the phenomenon spread, which Saudis considers an extremely complex problem and requires re-demarcation of the Yemeni-Saudi border, accusing the families of Yemeni origin to facilitate the process of smuggling into Saudi territory, not only launched heavy fire on the totals of Yemenis hackers without the slightest regard for their right of life Recently, the Saudi authorities sought to build the separation wall to combat the various kinds of smuggling and strengthening border control towers, and the deployment of 120 points along its border and strengthen patrols along the Saudi-Yemeni border in seven sectors of Saudi Arabia in which 43 centers border operates 210 patrols front and rear. “Many of Yemenis shot and killed in their ways to Saudi lands,” said Abdullah. A scientific study prepared by UNICEF, in conjunction with the Ministry of Affairs and Labor in 2004 found that the smuggling of children are often with the knowledge and consent of parents. “Some children are forced into it by their parents, and these families come to the borders in search of smugglers handed over their sons,” according the study. There are gangs of smuggling children and girls to Saudi lands and media reports said that Saudi Authorities captured such gangs that recruiting and exploit them in some illegal acts.
“The phenomenon of trafficking of children imposed challenges on the child because they are not prepared physically and psychologically as they add new burdens on state and so the number of illiterates and hackers from education increasing,” said President of the Shawthab Foundation for Childhood and Development Lamia Al-Eryani.
The essence of the problem is poverty. The Yemeni government’s efforts to combat this phenomenon must represent in raising the level of control on the border with Saudi Arabia. They must implement a popularity awareness campaigns, and establish training courses for security officials, in addition to the establishment of reception and rehabilitation centers in Harradh city in collaboration with donor organizations.