  | |
 | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 500,000(46,750 refugees) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Aden, Sana'a, Ibb, Lahj Governorate | |
| Languages | |
| Somali, Arabic | |
| Religion | |
| Islam | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Oromo, Afar, Saho, and other Cushitic-speaking peoples |
Somalis in Yemen make up the historical Somali population in Yemen. Around 200,000 Somalis live in Yemen, of which 46,750 are refugees. [1] [2] [3]
Many Somalis and Yemenis can trace back their ancestry to a unspecified homeland somewhere in modern day iraq. [4] Many Somalis fled to Yemen during the Somali Civil War. [5]
There are around 710,000 Somalis in Yemen, mostly concentrated around Aden. [6] There are also some on Lahij Gvernorate.
Many Somalis in Yemen now speak Arabic instead of their native Somali language due to language shift. [7] But also due to the fact that there are no Somali teachers in the refugee camps or enough budget to allocate funds to teach the Somali language. [8]
Many Somalis have returned back to their homeland deeming its safe enough to return. "The voluntary returns are part of UNHCR’s Assisted Spontaneous Return (ASR) programme". [2] Since 2017 over 6,200 somali refugees have returned home [2]
In 2010, Reuters reported that poverty among Somali refugees in Yemen remains common. [9] Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, the World Health Organization reported that migrant groups faced stigmatization as "transmitters of disease" after a Somali refugee was identified as the first case in the country. [10]
Following the outbreak of the Yemeni civil war, some refugees from Yemen have moved to Somalia. In 2022, Anadolu Agency reported that many Yemeni refugees have felt welcomed by Somali society. [11] As of late December 2021 there are 8,341 registered Yemeni refugees and asylum seekers in Somalia [11]
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third country. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and has 20,305 staff working in 136 countries as of December 2023.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is a United Nations related organization working in the field of migration. The organization implements operational assistance programmes for migrants, including internally displaced persons, refugees, and migrant workers.
A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as a result of who they are, what they believe in or say, or because of armed conflict, violence or serious public disorder." Such a person may be called an asylum seeker until granted refugee status by a contracting state or by the UNHCR if they formally make a claim for asylum.
A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displaced people. Usually, refugees seek asylum after they have escaped war in their home countries, but some camps also house environmental and economic migrants. Camps with over a hundred thousand people are common, but as of 2012, the average-sized camp housed around 11,400. They are usually built and run by a government, the United Nations, international organizations, or non-governmental organization. Unofficial refugee camps, such as Idomeni in Greece or the Calais jungle in France, are where refugees are largely left without the support of governments or international organizations.
Dadaab is a semi-arid town in Garissa County, Kenya. It is the site of a UNHCR base hosting 302,805 registered refugees and asylum seekers as of 31 October 2023, in four camps, making it one of the largest in the world behind Kutupalong refugee camp. The centre is run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and its operations are financed by foreign donors. In 2013, UNHCR, the governments of Kenya and Somalia signed a tripartite agreement facilitating the repatriation of Somali refugees at the complex.
Afghan refugees are citizens of Afghanistan who were forced to flee from their country as a result the continuous wars that the country has suffered since the Afghan-Soviet war, the Afghan civil war, the Afghanistan war (2001–2021) or either political or religious persecution. The 1978 Saur Revolution, followed by the 1979 Soviet invasion, marked the first major wave of internal displacement and international migration to neighboring Iran and Pakistan; smaller numbers also went to India or to countries of the former Soviet Union. Between 1979 and 1992, more than 20% of Afghanistan's population fled the country as refugees. Following the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, many returned to Afghanistan, however many Afghans were again forced to flee during the civil war in the 90s. Over 6 million Afghan refugees were residing in Iran and Pakistan by 2000. Most refugees returned to Afghanistan following the 2001 United States invasion and overthrow of the Taliban regime. Between 2002 and 2012, 5.7 million refugees returned to Afghanistan, increasing the country's population by 25%.
World Refugee Day is an international day organised every year on 20 June by the United Nations. It is designed to celebrate and honour refugees from around the world. The day was first established on 20 June 2001, in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.
The Somali diaspora or Qurbajoogta refers to Somalis who were born in Greater Somalia and reside in areas of the world that they were not born in. The civil war in Somalia greatly increased the size of the Somali diaspora, as many Somalis moved from Greater Somalia primarily to Europe, North America, Oceania and South Africa. There are also small Somali populations in Asia. The UN estimates that in 2015, approximately 7 million people from Somalia were living outside of the country's borders.
The Somali Bantus are a Bantu ethnic minority group in Somalia who primarily reside in the southern part of the country, primarily near the Jubba and Shabelle rivers. The Somali Bantus are descendants of enslaved peoples from various Bantu ethnic groups from Southeast Africa, particularly from Mozambique, Malawi, and Tanzania. The East African slave trade was not eliminated until the early parts of the 20th century.
Bruno Geddo is an Italian national, born in Novara in 1959. He has served with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for over 30 years in Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East.
Afghan diaspora refers to the Afghan people that reside and work outside of Afghanistan. They include natives and citizens of Afghanistan who have immigrated to other countries. The majority of the diaspora has been formed by Afghan refugees since the start of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979; the largest numbers temporarily reside in Iran. As stateless refugees or asylum seekers, they are protected by the well-established non-refoulement principle and the U.N. Convention Against Torture. The ones having at least one American parent are further protected by United States laws.
Sudanese refugees in Israel refers to citizens of Sudan who have sought refuge in Israel due to military conflict at home, and to those who moved there illegally as migrant workers. In 2008, there were 4,000 Sudanese in Israel, 1,200 from Darfur and the remainder Christians from South Sudan. The majority entered through the Israeli-Egypt border. Most live in Tel Aviv, Arad, Eilat and Bnei Brak.
Djibouti is a transit and, to a lesser extent, a source and destination country for men, women, and children who are subjected to trafficking in people, specifically conditions of forced labor and forced prostitution. There is little verifiable data on the human trafficking situation in Djibouti. An estimated 150 000 voluntary economic migrants from Ethiopia and Somalia passed illegally through Djibouti en route to Yemen and other locations in the Middle East in 2022; among this group, a small number of women and girls may fall victim to involuntary domestic servitude or forced commercial sexual exploitation after reaching Djibouti City or the Ethiopia-Djibouti trucking corridor. An unknown number of migrants – men, women, and children – are subjected to conditions of forced labor and forced prostitution after reaching Yemen and other destinations in the Middle East. Djibouti's large refugee population – consisting of Somalis, Ethiopians, and Eritreans – as well as foreign street children remain vulnerable to various forms of exploitation within the country, including human trafficking. Older street children reportedly act, at times, as pimps for younger children. A small number of girls from impoverished Djiboutian families may engage in prostitution with the encouragement of family members or other people in prostitution. Members of foreign militaries stationed in Djibouti contribute to the demand for women and girls in prostitution, including trafficking victims.
Refugees of the Syrian civil war are citizens and permanent residents of Syria who fled the country in the course of the Syrian civil war. The pre-war population of the Syrian Arab Republic was estimated at 22 million (2017), including permanent residents. Of that number, the United Nations (UN) identified 13.5 million (2016) as displaced persons in need of humanitarian assistance. Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011 more than six million (2016) were internally displaced, and around five million (2016) crossed into other countries, seeking asylum or placement in Syrian refugee camps. It is believed to be one of the world's largest refugee crises.
A refugee crisis can refer to difficulties and dangerous situations in the reception of large groups of forcibly displaced persons. These could be either internally displaced, refugees, asylum seekers or any other huge groups of migrants.
Voluntary return or voluntary repatriation is the return of an migrant such as illegal immigrants, rejected asylum seekers, refugees, unaccompanied minors, as well as second-generation immigrants who with their own free-will make an autonomous decision to return to their country of origin, or homeland when they are unable or unwilling to remain in the host country.
The Turkish migrant crisis, sometimes referred to as the Turkish refugee crisis, was a period during the 2010s characterised by a high number of people migrating to Turkey. Turkey received the highest number of registered refugees of any country or territory each year from 2014 to 2019, and had the world's largest refugee population according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The majority were refugees of the Syrian Civil War, numbering 3.6 million as of June 2020. In 2018, the UNHCR reported that Turkey hosted 63.4% of all "registered Syrian refugees."
The first confirmed case relating to the COVID-19 pandemic in Yemen was announced on 10 April 2020 with an occurrence in Hadhramaut. Organizations called the news a "devastating blow" and a "nightmare scenario" given the country's already dire humanitarian situation.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, food insecurity intensified in many places. In the second quarter of 2020, there were multiple warnings of famine later in the year. In an early report, the Nongovernmental Organization (NGO) Oxfam-International talks about "economic devastation" while the lead-author of the UNU-WIDER report compared COVID-19 to a "poverty tsunami". Others talk about "complete destitution", "unprecedented crisis", "natural disaster", "threat of catastrophic global famine". The decision of the WHO on 11 March 2020, to qualify COVID as a pandemic, that is "an epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people" also contributed to building this global-scale disaster narrative.
| Africa | |
|---|---|
| Americas | |
| Middle East | |
| Asia | |
| Europe | |
| Oceania | |
