SOMALIA: Perilous journey to "land of milk and honey" ends in deportations

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

According to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, of the 78,487 Ethiopians and Somalis who crossed into Yemen from Somalia and Djibouti in 2009, 685 died at sea.

Nairobi, 5 January 2011 (IRIN) - Hawa Aden left Bosasso, a Somali port city in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, in 2009 on a dangerous boat journey across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen, and then trekked 20 days to reach Saudi Arabia.

"I was exhausted and terrified when we got there [Yemen] but I was happy at the same time," Aden told IRIN. "I thought I had arrived in the land of milk and honey [Saudi Arabia]."

Hundreds of Somalis undertake the perilous journey to Saudi Arabia via Yemen. However, many end up being deported.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, of the 78,487 Ethiopians and Somalis who crossed into Yemen from Somalia and Djibouti in 2009, 685 died at sea.

Accompanying Aden on her journey were eight Somali women and seven men. They all made it to Saudi Arabia where Aden found employment as a domestic worker in a small town.

"I worked there for one-and-a-half years; it was not perfect but at least I could send money to my family back home, who were all in IDP [internally displaced persons] camps," she said.

One day, she decided to make a trip to Jeddah and was promptly arrested by Saudi police.
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