The young woman of her twenties of Ethiopian origin (S.M.W) arrived with her companion at Al-Jumhouri Hospital in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, on the morning of Tuesday, 16 March, looking for the general surgery department and the place where the victims of the burning detention center for illegal immigrants are hospitalized, at the Immigration and Passports Authority, on the 7th of last March.

The Ethiopian young woman does not have any blood relative among the victims in the government hospital, she told Khuyut.

“The heart.. they are Ethiopians, and we are from the same country,” the young woman says with a smile mixed with sadness. "These are wounds and blood shedding. It is our duty to unite with each other, especially when we are in a foreign country other than our homeland." She added.

In September 2018, the girl left the Oromia region in Ethiopia, and rode the sea to find herself on the shores of Aden, as one of the unknown numbers flowing from the Horn of Africa continuously to Yemen with the aim of reaching Saudi Arabia. “Our goal was to enter Saudi Arabia, but the smuggler asked My husband to pay a huge sum for our smuggling trip,” says the young woman, whose husband decided for poverty reasons to walk with the smugglers alone without her. Months later, she received news of his arrest by the Saudi authorities, who brought him back to the Yemeni border with others who had the same fate.

About two days after the incident, the reporter of this investigation visited the building of Al-Jumhouri Hospital in Sana’a, in which its fifth floor was dedicated for the victims of the fire incident. We went with the two girls and their two children to the surgery department. There were 30 injured people distributed among the beds of the rooms allocated to them, which was confirmed by a medical source in the hospital, who reported that the burns were spread over their entire bodies. The source pointed out that the Burns Center in Al-Jumhouri received victims of large and medium burns, while the minor wounds were received by Kuwait Hospital which also received the dead bodies which were placed in its refrigerator. 

In fact, it was not easy to enter this place and talk to the injured. One of the security men was sitting next to them, in charge of guarding the room. He prevented us from entering, although we told him that we came to visit the victims for a humanitarian purpose only, and we wanted to talk to them, but he ordered one of the nurses to lock the room door in our faces.

According to migrants we met in Sana’a on 16 March, they confirmed that they were in contact with their detained comrades at the Immigration and Passports Authority, and they had heard the details of the recent fire incident from the survivors. They were not able to pay the sums that the authorities imposed on the detainees in exchange for their deportation to their country, according to their accounts. These sums vary from person to person. They explained in their interview with "Khuyut" that the detainees went on a hunger strike and staged a rebellion in protest against their detention, and the security forces intervened and threw "Bombs on them that cased the building to burn," according to Ethiopian testimonies, which were also confirmed by international organizations.

Mysterious collection campaigns

According to information obtained by the investigation, supported by the testimonies of Ethiopians close to the survivors of the fire, whom “Khuyut” met in Aden, they said in their testimonies that campaigns to collect and arrest the illegal immigrants increased during the month of February, for unknown and unclear reasons, despite the leaked information about the link between these campaigns and the military recruitment processes carried out by the authorities during the same period.

In the context, independent Ethiopian personalities, after the fire incident, accused the security authorities in Sana'a of imposing sums of money on the Ethiopian immigrants in exchange for their deportation, forcing them to go on hunger strike and later clashed with the guards. The head of the Canada-based Oromia News Network, Jamda Soti, told the BBC that he has documented testimonies that "the Houthis are bargaining with the refugees in order to join their fighting forces to combat against the allied forces led by Saudi Arabia," stressing that "this is what angered the detainees and led them to go on a hunger strike." This was confirmed by survivors of the accident who preferred not to be named.

A security official in the Ministry of Interior of Sana'a government, who declined to be named, categorically denied the authenticity of this information. In his interview with "Khuyut", he explained that the campaigns carried out by the security authorities to collect migrants were launched at the beginning of the war they have been gathered in groups to the detention centers to be deported from Sanaa. He stressed that the authorities had, during the past weeks, collected hundreds of migrants in shelters in Sana'a which was known as immigration and passports prison.

We were not satisfied with this response, but we presented to some security personnel some photos of the dead Ethiopian immigrants, who were killed in battles within Ansar Allah forces (Houthis). Moreover, the photos of the Ethiopian dead persons were among the templates of pictures published by the group for its fighters who lost their lives in battles, in addition to a video clip broadcast by the group of Ansar Allah's TV, Al-Masirah channel, on August 27, 2020, for the funeral of an Ethiopian in Hajjah Governorate. 

The security source definitely denied the gathering of immigrants to participate in military actions with Ansar Allah group (Houthis). He explained to "Khuyut" that the gathering of migrants was for the purpose of deportation. He points out that migrants are deported on a weekly basis to the last point in the areas under the control of the Sanaa government, stressing that the authorities deport them and pay them sums of money.

According to the International Organization for Migration, the "forced handover" of migrants has increased from the northern governorates of Yemen controlled by Ansar Allah group (Houthis) to areas in the south of the country under the control of the internationally recognized Yemeni government.

Ahmed Ali, one of the Ethiopian immigrants who was in the migrant’s shelter center in Sana’a during the fire incident on March 7, and was transferred by the Sana’a authorities to the borders of the southern regions, talks to “Khuyut” about his deportation from Sana’a with a group of migrants who were in poor health and psychological conditions in the shelter after surviving the fire accident.

Charred bodies

Over the past years, Ethiopian immigrants have experienced all kinds of death in all parts of the world, except death by burning. The recent burning incident that occurred in the detention center in Sanaa is one of the horrible aspects of death. The videos and photos posted on social media showed the most brutal and heartless scenes of death among the other incidents experienced by immigrants in all the labyrinths of the world like drowning in the sea and the death at the borders of distant countries. In that crowded shelter with migrants, the flames were devouring everything in front of it, while the detainees were unable to leave the place, and their death screams as the fire claiming their lives did not help them until after a quarter of an hour, when rescue force came from outside the shelter breaking the walls and doors, but the bodies of dozens of them were charred, according to international organizations while the survivors were taken to the city’s hospitals.

Human Rights Watch has verified some videos that corroborate the reports some eye witnesses who spoke to it, including a video taken immediately after the fire that shows dozens of burnt bodies in positions indicating that they were trying to escape but were overwhelmed by smoke and fire, according to the international organization.

On the other hand, according to the authorities in Sana’a, this was due to the only door to the ward, which only allows one person to leave, which led to an intensification of the stampede, which doubled the number of victims of weak bodies, in addition to the cases of fainting due to the fire.

A video clip also showed the charred bodies of dozens of victims, most of them Ethiopians, whose coughing and screaming could be heard as migrants wandered in charred mattresses soaked in mud and human remains.

What happened?

On the seventh of last March, at two o’clock in the evening, a fire broke out in one of the immigrant detention wards at the Immigration and Passports Authority in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a. Even residents of the neighboring zones did not know the cause of smoke rising from the place until an hour later, and according to the residents’ testimonies, they considered that the smoke was the result of burning oil derivatives. However, the reality of the incident became clear to them with the large flow of firefighting vehicles and ambulances, and the heavy security presence in the area.

Two weeks after the arrival of the Ethiopian immigrant Ahmed Ali to the place of detention, and the conditions deteriorated, he demanded with the rest of the immigrants to be released from detention but his request was rejected. As a result, 358 migrants detained in Ward No. 1, as the official authorities called it, went on a hunger strike and caused chaos and riots inside the place due to their continued detention and deportation to their country, according to the young man, who stated that the guards tried to force the migrants to eat.

Moreover, the man we met in the city of Aden continued by saying: "during second day of protest, the soldiers came and said we must eat by force, and when we refused and threw food plates to the ground, then the soldiers left and after a while five soldiers came in, one of them climbed the ladder to the top of the courtyard, threw the bomb and burned the shelter." 

"400 people died, and the rest broke the gate and went outside," the young man recalls with heartbreak the horror scenes he experienced that day. He added, "The rest were carried in long vehicles and cars. We left Sanaa to the borders of Aden, until we reached the borders of Aden then we walked for four days, we didn't know anyone there."

Najeeb al-Ansi, director of security media in Sanaa, explained to "Khuyut" that the situation prompted the security men to intervene and control it, pointing out that the migrants beat the security forces, which necessitated a request for the intervention of the riot police, despite the denial of this by survivors of the incident.

Al-Ansi added that the military groups were forced, according to his statement, to throw (3) bombs, which he confirmed were smoke and tear gas containing Cs, which caused the burning of the warehouse. He also confirmed that "only 47 Ethiopian migrants and 6 security personnel died."

According to the statistics of the Ministry of the Interior in Sana’a, the number of migrants detained in the immigration and passports prison was (862) detainees, of whom (358) were in the ward where the fire broke out, 44 of them died, and (202) were injured, bringing the outcome of the incident to (246) detainees, whereas the fate of 112 detainees still unknown, but the Interior Ministry’s statement clarified that (111) detainees were able to leave without injuries to join the rest of their colleagues from the other wards and number was (504) detainees who were released as per the Ministry of Interior statement without clarifying to which destination.

The Director of Security Media considers that this incident was an accidental event outside the will of the authority, noting that the statement of the communities admitted that this incident happens to migrants everywhere, such as drowning incidents, according to his statement. The security official denied the fact that the immigrant communities' statement came according to the dictates of the authorities in Sana'a.

Vagueness of the incident

For days, the incident remained without further details or causes. After a week of ambiguity and secrecy, the authorities in control of Sana’a announced 44 dead, victims of the fire in the detention center. They were buried in the Sheikh Abdullah bin Hussein al-Ahmar cemetery south of the capital, without revealing any other results. Although international organizations revealed that the facility housed nearly 900 migrants, most of them Ethiopians detained by Ansar Allah (Houthis), of whom more than 350 migrants were inside the ward that caught fire, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which said that some IOM staff were at the time on site. International and local organizations, as well as the media, were unable to reach the scene of the accident or to meet with the surviving victims of the fire. 

The Ministry of the Interior considered the delay in the clarification statement, which remained for days after the incident so as not to be exploited in exchange for full-time treatment of the victims, and indicated that the facts that were stated by the immigrant leaders in a press statement, indicated that the number of migrants in the detention center was distributed among 5 wards, of which it was burned. Ward No. 1, leaving 44 dead and 202 wounded, all of whom have left the hospital except for 21 who are still receiving treatment, 4 of whom are in critical condition. On March 13, it was reported that 468 migrants were officially deported after the fire, after taking a photo and fingerprint for each of them, and 44 dead people were officially buried after taking DNA samples for later identification, while an unknown number of them escaped according to the statement. Pointing out that the authorities in Sana'a "immediately after the incident released 193 migrants, and each of them 100,000 Yemeni riyals (165 US dollars) and bypassed the law, taking into account their humanitarian situation." The representative of the Sudanese community, Abdullah Al-Leithi, said that "there are no specialized centers in Sana'a to receive, shelter and protect immigrants until their status is determined."

According to the Ministry of Interior in Sana’a, in an official statement seen by “Khuyut”, there was in ward No. 1 which was prepared by the Organization of Migration, in which the fire occurred, about 358 inmates, 44 of whom died, and the injured reached to Hospitals: About (202) detainees.

Searching for the remains of their relatives

In the city of Aden in southern Yemen, "Khuyut" met some of the Ethiopian immigrants. With great sadness, they talked about the recent fire incident in Sana'a, "They burned our youth, our husbands and our brothers. They burned them all like firewood," says Ms. Fatima - a refugee from Ethiopia who residing in Aden. In her interview with " Khuyut ", she added that there are relatives of her (the conversation with her was last March) who are still inside the hospital in Sana'a, which she described as a "prison", along with migrants she knows closely, all of whom are injured and are still undergoing treatment.

Three weeks of anxiety, confusion and fatal waiting, Fatima lives and awaits any news about her relatives, but the most painful side came with the news that one of her relatives died in the fire accident in Sana'a, and she was unable to get a last farewell look of him. 

As for Safwan Gabo, an Ethiopian immigrant in the city of Aden, his story is different from Fatima, but they share the pain of emigration together. Gabo spent more than a year and a half in the immigration and passports prison in Sanaa, before he was deported to the city of Aden about a year ago, after one of his relatives paid a sum of money in exchange for his release without giving any details of the amount that was paid. In his talk to "Khuyut", he describes his most difficult days in prison. With pain, he spoke about the burning of his immigrant companions in Sana'a, the suffering that the Ethiopians are subjected to, and his determination to return to his country, which he describes as death in it is lighter than what they were exposed to in Yemen.

The story of Safwan is one of many stories of African immigrants who met the hell of immigration greater than death in their countries, and decided to return, but their only obstacle besides war was that they did not have enough money. Jabo asserts that most of the migrants who were with him in prison in Sana'a were unable to pay the sums of money that the authorities imposed in exchange for their deportation. According to migrants who recently arrived in the city of Aden, the authorities in Sana'a have deported hundreds of migrants who were detained in the immigration prison to the city of Aden, following the recent fire incident. The reporter of the investigation also tried to reach the Ethiopian authorities, but until this investigation was published, it was not possible to reach them to find out their feedback about this incident.