• War: Massacre in Yemen after a chain of Saudi air strikes against a prison
  • Migrations: This is how people traffickers work: the world's most lucrative criminal business

Bilisee's trip has ended up buried in the ramshackle corridors of the May 22 stadium in the southern Yemeni city of Aden. Along with it, 2,500 migrants have been detained for weeks at facilities that once, increasingly remote, served to host sports events. "My family had no property other than that of a cow. They sold it to help me get to Saudi Arabia, but now they have run out of nothing. I made this journey to achieve a better future, to help my family and myself," tells EL MUNDO Bilisee, a 20-year-old girl from the Ethiopian region of Oromia.

His name is fictitious to protect his identity and avoid reprisals by the Aden authorities, which in late April launched a wave of arbitrary arrests of migrants from the Horn of Africa who cross the country on the way to the petromonarchies of Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates United. Since then, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), about 5,000 people have been arrested and confined in two stadiums and a military camp in the provinces of Aden, Abyan and Lahj, in conditions that have set off all alarms. . "The situation is very serious. None of the three sites are suitable for inhabiting and the more people are transferred there and the longer they remain in those conditions, the worse the situation," warns Olivia Headon , spokesman for the newspaper agency in Aden.

Overcrowding and the absence of the slightest hygiene have already claimed lives. At least eight people, admitted to a military base in Lahj, died in early May due to complications related to acute watery diarrhea. Field authorities detected up to 200 similar cases. " Five other children and men have died at the Ibn JaldĂşn hospital, which brings the number up to 13 victims . However, some sources say the figures could be higher," admits Headon. In the poorest nation of the Persian Gulf, devastated by more than four years of civil war, Aden was until last month government headquarters supported by the Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Since then, the southern separatists - backed by the Emirates - have controlled the city by expanding the fronts of a labyrinthine civil war in which the allies suddenly become enemies. The indirect talks between both sides, held earlier this month in the Saudi city of Jeddah, have not made any progress and hostilities remain unchanged. The separatists have expanded their control over the southern provinces. To try to mitigate the crisis, Hadi announced on Thursday a ministerial remodeling. Migrants who pursue a future, caught between the trenches of a conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and collapsed the health system, have been transfigured into the last victims of misgovernment.

" Yemen received more migrants than Europe in 2018. Many vulnerable people continue to enter the country on their way to the Gulf countries," admits Sultana Begum of the Norwegian Refugee Council to this newspaper. "150,000 people accessed in the first quarter of 2019. Many come from Ethiopia, some from Somalia. They travel to Djibouti and then risk dangerous boat trips. In April, a large number were shipwrecked while trying to reach Yemen. They flee the conflict, drought and poverty, hoping for a new life . Instead, they find death and exploitation. The authorities should feel a little compassion, "the humanitarian worker begs.

Violence and abuse

The tragedies have happened during the last months in a moor of the forgotten planet. Two migrants were injured after the guards guarding the Aden stadium opened fire . One of the teenagers will suffer a paralysis for life after surviving the rain of bullets. There have also been reports of sexual assaults against women who are held in the facilities. "I can't ask my parents for anything else. Now that they've stopped me and brought me, if I called them and told them that I spend my days sitting in this place ... I don't know how to tell them," Bilisee babbles, who does three months sneaked out of the family home and dragged a journey full of pain. "It was a very hard trip. We didn't eat or drink. We didn't sleep either. I saw people die on the road . When someone fell ill and died, we had to leave their body there. They died in the desert in Africa," he recalls. To reach Yemen, Bilisee had to disburse 20,000 birr (about 614 euros). "A trafficker came to town but was not just a person. We met different smugglers throughout the trip through different countries," he adds.

The denunciations of the international organization have forced the Government to accept the civil control of the facilities. Minors who were detained have been transferred to Unicef-controlled spaces. The uniformed, however, continue to manage the centers. "At the Aden stadium we are providing food, drinking water, hygiene through emergency latrines and the rehabilitation of bathrooms and offering health care," confirms the IOM spokeswoman. Urgent actions have not mitigated concerns about the fate of the legion of migrants stranded in anyone's land. "We are concerned about the extreme conditions faced by asylum seekers, traffic victims and migrants in general in southern Yemen. People who are there should be able to move freely in and out of camps," says Begum. Suspended the promise of becoming the economic support of his family, Bilisee still dreams of completing his pilgrimage. "If I arrived in Saudi Arabia, I would do what God would let me do," he mutters through the stadium stands.

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