Hardly no one in Aden, during the six years following the 2015 war, did not know the “Oromos.” Their heavy presence in the city made everyone get to know them and see their arduous journeys to reach Aden, which they take as a “transit” station to determine their next destination.
Their occurrence is concentrated in the 22 May Stadium in the Crater district in the center of Aden and its surroundings, where you find them scattered in groups in markets, alleys, streets, restaurants, cafes, hotels and mosques.
The "Oromo" people, which means "people born free", are an ethnic majority among the population of Ethiopia, in a country that includes more than 80 different ethnicities, and this ethnicity has faced marginalization and abuse by the ruling Amharic ethnicity, which prompted them to migrate away from their homeland and they demand their independence of their lands to which they belong.
Civil activist Hussein Bamashmoos told "Khuyut" about the difficult pathway that the "Oromo" took to reach the Yemeni shores. Despite the large number of travelers on boats, and other risks of sea migration, they are not afraid of the rough seas, so they begin to arrive successively to the Yemeni shores. .
There are no official figures about the number of illegal immigrants from the Oromo people to Yemen, however, many estimates suggest that they may exceed 100,000 people, including men, women and children.
Bameshmos added that most of them settle in the coastal Yemeni cities such as Aden and Abyan, and a few of them complete their journey from Ethiopia to a land where they can continue their lives freely there.
Difficult conditions
In broken Arabic, Maidhamo Hosni, an Oromo member, complained of the difficult conditions they faced in Yemen as well. As soon as they were allowed to sleep in some mosques, the decision came to prevent them from doing so, which directed some of them to settle under the shades of trees and some road squares.
Similarly, Amjad Abdul Rahman, an Oromo national, points out that some hotel and restaurant owners and employers exploit the urgent need of the “Oromo” to work and earn money by underestimating their wages for the work they do, such as cleaning dishes and floors and polishing the facades of some restaurants and hotels.
In the same context, "Khuyut" visited some of the places where these immigrants are and it was noted that many of them are facing tough living conditions and arduous errands in the work assigned to them.
The owner of a restaurant, who asked not to be named, talked to Khuyut about the hard conditions the Oromo are going through which make them to accept to work for amounts that sometimes reach half of the real value of their jobs.
The owner pointed out that there were some problems that occurred between the "Oromos" and the car washers from Somalia, due to the competitive low sums requested by the "Oromos" for work.
Fears of transmitting viruses
You find some of them standing in queues in front of restaurants, to eat leftovers from the dishes, which activists denounce as they see the need to better deal with these migrants and appreciate their difficult conditions and their motives for migrating to Yemen, who had been also suffering from war, conflict and large internal and external waves of displacement.
Moreover, some restaurant owners prevent the Oromo to enter their restaurants on the grounds that they may carry diseases or viruses that spread very quickly.
In this regard, Doctor Fouad Ahmed explained to "Khuyut", that it is the duty of the state to examine all new comers to the country, noting that about a year ago, an epidemic called the "West Nile" virus spread among some citizens, which frightened the citizens that the virus may be transmitted from Africa to Aden, although there are no flights between African countries and Aden.
Recently, the Minister of Planning and International Cooperation in the internationally recognized government, Dr. Waed Badheeb, discussed, during his meeting in Aden, with the head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) mission in Yemen, Christa Rotensteis, to support Yemen's efforts to confront the refugee file in light of the ongoing war in the country.
Badheeb called on the International Organization for Migration to provide more assistance and to establish shelters equipped with infrastructure and basic needs to receive refugees. He reiterated the eagerness of the Ministry of Planning and international cooperation in the Government of Aden to provide all the necessary facilitations and support to the Migration Organization and to all other international organizations operating in Yemen in order to overcome any obstacles facing the implementation of their various projects and programs in Yemen in order to contribute to alleviating the misery of Yemenis as a result of the current war.
For her part, the head of the international mission expressed her happiness at the meeting and her aspiration for further cooperation to provide various assistance, reviewing the mission's activities and programs in a number of areas, including health, provision of refuges' shelter and development projects in a number of regions and governorates of the Republic.
The international migration official further confirmed that the organization is coordinating with the Ethiopian authorities regarding the voluntary return of Ethiopian refugees in Yemen to their country.
