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 US 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.
During the truce, international aid agencies working out of Djibouti shipped thousands of tons of foodstuffs, fuel, medicines, sleeping mats and other essentials to Yemen by boat and plane. United Nations officials and aid groups have called for an extension of the cease-fire and the opening of peace talks between the warring factions.
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 US citizens _ have left Yemen since a Saudi-led bombing campaign against Al Houthi militiamen challenging the Yemeni government began in March, the UN 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 Al Houthi militiamen 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.
Among the Yemenis interviewed in Djibouti, there appears to be little hope that the conflict in their homeland will end anytime soon. A sense of deep despair emerges.
A good number of those who escaped here hail from Aden, where many residents support a southern separatist movement and are hostile to both Al Houthi militiamen who control Sana’a, the capital, and to the exiled government of President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
The president is from Aden but has not backed the separatist cause and is not especially popular in his hometown. The allegiances of refugees here highlight how the Yemen war is a complex conflict with many sides and shifting loyalties.
“Independence for the south!” chanted Mazen Rubaty, a Yemeni refugee, to a group of foreign journalists who arrived at the isolated Markazi refugee camp, set up for those fleeing Yemen.
The 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 UN 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.
Rubaty, 38, a father of four, was recuperating from a bullet wound to the back received in Aden, where battles raged before the cease-fire. A gauze bandage was wrapped around his lower back and abdomen. “I was just walking down the street when I was shot,” said Rubaty, a former merchant seaman. “For me, Yemen is finished. I will go back when the south is free.”
UN 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 UN 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 went from a normal life to gun battles in the streets,” said Mohammad Qaity, 45, who escaped with his wife and two children on a boat from Aden.
He and other men were found on a recent afternoon under the shade provided by the roof of a mosque.
“When (the fasting month of) Ramadan comes it will be very bad,” said Rasha Abdullah, the 27-year-old from Aden who, like many others, said she hoped to be resettled in Europe. “We want to go to some cold place _ not to any Arab nation. The Arabs have treated us very badly.”
But like the US, countries in Europe have limited openings for the massive numbers of refugees fleeing the Middle East and Africa.
“We knew we left our homes behind to save our lives,” said Shareen Hassan, 27, mother of three, one of a number of veiled women who approached visiting journalists to express their discontent. “But, really, we deserve something better than this.”
