Addis Ababa, October 11/2022 (Walta) – The UN has flown home 129 Ethiopian migrants who were stranded in Yemen in the first humanitarian repatriation flight from rebel-held Sanaa this year.
The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) arranged the voluntary return of more than 1,800 mostly East African migrants from Yemen in 2022, all from airports controlled by Yemen’s internationally recognized government in Aden and Marib.
Many of the passengers flying from Sanaa to Addis Ababa on Tuesday were unaccompanied minors and people with medical conditions, the migration agency said on Tuesday.
The conflict in Yemen began in 2014 when Iran-backed Houthi rebel forces seized Sanaa.
A Saudi Arabia-led coalition including the UAE intervened the next year to try to restore the internationally recognised government to power.
About 43,000 migrants, mostly from East Africa are thought to be stranded in Yemen, almost all arriving with the intention of travelling north to neighboring Saudi Arabia.
Migrants are regularly killed in crossfire, detained or forcibly enlisted as fighters by Yemeni’s warring factions.