Fire kills 8 at Yemeni migrant detention centre, says UN agency

More than 90 injured migrants are in serious condition, according to International Organisation for Migration official

Smoke billows above Sanaa after air strikes on rebel positions on March 7, 2021, the same day as a fire at a migrant detention centre near the Yemeni capital. EPA

A fire killed at least eight people at a detention centre for migrants in Yemen’s rebel-held capital on Sunday and injured more than 170 others, the UN migration agency said.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said the cause of the fire at the centre, south of Sanaa, was not immediately clear. More than 90 migrants were in serious condition and the death toll could be much higher, it said.

The detention centre is run by the Houthi rebels, who have controlled the capital since the outbreak of Yemen’s civil war more than six years ago. The rebels said civil defence teams managed to extinguish the fire and that its cause was being investigated.

A UN official said the fire broke out in a hangar close to the main building of the detention centre, which was housing more than 700 migrants.

Most of the migrants were arrested in the northern province of Saada, while trying to cross into Saudi Arabia, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“But this is just one of the many dangers that migrants have faced during the past six years of the crisis in Yemen,” said Carmela Godeau, IOM’s regional director for MENA region, in a tweet.

The narrow waters between the Horn of Africa and Yemen have been a popular migration route despite Yemen’s conflict. Tens of thousands of migrants, desperate to find jobs as housekeepers, servants and construction workers, try to make their way through Yemen every year to wealthy Gulf countries.

Some 138,000 migrants embarked on the arduous journey from the Horn of Africa to Yemen in 2019, but this number decreased drastically to 37,000 last year because of the coronavirus pandemic. More than 2,500 migrants reached Yemen from Djibouti in January, according to IOM.

Those migrants are vulnerable to abuse by trafficking rings, many of them believed to be connected to the armed groups involved in the war. Earlier this month, at least 20 migrants died when smugglers threw 80 overboard during a voyage from Djibouti in East Africa to Yemen, according to the IOM.