Yemeni commanders return from Syria

Tens of Yemeni military officers, who took refuge in Syria after the 1994 Civil War, arrived at Aden International Airport yesterday.

According to the official sources they took advantage of the decree of general amnesty issued by President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in the aftermath of the war.

The Yemeni official news agency (Sabaa) yesterday quoted officials as saying that the military commanders returned home along with their families. "They are those who were displaced from the fraternal Arab Republic of Syria during the summer of 1994."

The returnees were received at the airport by a number of senior military officials who handed them 'financial grants' estimated at 50,000 Yemeni riyal each ($300).

"They will be integrated with the community and their living conditions will be settled according to the President's directives," the officials said.

Upon their arrival, the officers expressed their gratitude and appreciation to President Saleh for the decree of the general amnesty, giving them an opportunity to come back home, the agency added.

"The good reception and treatment which the previous returnees received by the government encouraged us to return quickly to our homeland," one of the officers was quoted as saying.

Some 150 officers along with their families arrived on July 24 this year and some 118 returned on July 27.

Yemen witnessed an all-out civil war in the summer of 1994 when the south tried to secede from the north only four years after the unity that was proclaimed on May 22, 1990. Thus many officers were displaced to Syria on the heels of the civil war.