Somali refugees endure injustice until when?

One of our news stories recently uncovered that more than 157 people have been reported dead or missing during the first 19 days of 2008 due to the risky trip across the Gulf of Aden. The report also stated that over 1,400 people were dead or missing last year. According to the same report, which was issued by the UNHCR, so far this year 2,452 people have landed by boat in Yemen, most of them from Somalia, compared with over 29,500 for the whole of 2007.  

Are the lives of the Somali people so disposable that none of the international organizations or influential powers have yet to interfere in order to put a stop to the suffering of innocent people? 

When will the international community finally take the Somali issue into consideration? How long will we have to wait? We know that the United States and the international collation invaded Iraq in 1990 under the pretence of protecting international security after Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait and killed dozens of Kuwaitis. 

In that instance, we realized that the strong international response was not because of the Kuwaiti people being killed and tortured by Saddam Hussein, but rather because of the country’s oil.

Unfortunately, the poor country of Somalia has no oil, so the international community has been turning a deaf ear on the Somali problem.  Yemen and other neighboring countries of Somalia have been suffering from the flow of Somali refugees while the rest of the world has paid no attention to the victims and those making a sacrifice. 

Yemen has enough economic problems as it is and cannot deal with the flow of more refugees from Somalia and the rest of the countries of the troubled African Horn. 

Yemen has repeatedly called upon the international community to support the Somali government so as to reconstruct Somali state institutions and to rebuild what had been destroyed in two decades of bloody civil war. To our amazement, the international community has disregarded the beckoning once again.

Is the blood of innocent Somali refugees not of the same construction as the blood of all humans on the globe? Are they so poor that no one cares, allowing them to be mistreated?

I swear that they are human beings who breathe like those in Europe or America, and their blood is red like the blood of any other living being across the globe. They have bodies and souls, just as other humans do. They have arms and legs whose muscles have enabled some of them to swim through the sea to Yemeni shores. Their determination and will for a better life is not something to be looked down upon, and if anything, they need to be lifted out of these dangerous waters and be offered the hand of the international community.

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