YEMEN: No assistance for tsunami victims

SANA, 29 June 2005 (IRIN) - No relief has been provided in Yemen for victims of the December 2004 tsunami, neither has there been any attempt to assess or repair damage to the country's marine environments according to government officials. Independent fishermen in Al-Mahrah and Socotra suffered the more than anyone else from the tsunami, yet most of them "are still waiting for the government to do something," said Abdulkhaliq Al-Ghaberi, Director General of the Environmental Emergency Unit (EEU) in the Ministry of Water and Environment. He said insufficient funds, poor coordination among agencies and a lack of human and technical capacity have prevented Yemen from recovering from the devastating tsunami. The tsunami caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake killed between 200,000 and 310,000 people. Over US $3 billion in relief aid was pledged by the international community. Yemen suffered far less damage than the worst affected countries such Indonesia or Sri Lanka with just two confirmed deaths and damage estimated to be in the region of $1 to $2 million. However, for Yemen, the greatest impact has been on the loss of livelihood suffered by local fishermen, according to a preliminary assessment conducted by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the EEU. In the words of their report, aid to the fishermen in Socotra and Al-Mahrah is "critical for them to recover and resume a normal life." Al-Ghaberi said that local authorities are doing their best to aid the fishing communities but that they had not received any funds from central government or foreign donors. Deputy Minister of Fish Wealth, Mahmood Ibrahim Al-Saghiry, confirmed that no aid had yet been provided to fishermen who were victims of the tsunami. He said that the ministry, along with the Food and Agricultural Organization, were planning a mission to assess the damage to fish stocks that would include an appraisal of the state of the effected fishermen. The UNEP/EEU assessment reported over 50 fishing boats and 69 outboard engines totally destroyed in Socotra and Al-Mahrah with over 108 boats and 106 engines partially destroyed. Nearly 1,000 fishing traps, 674 fishing nets and large amounts of other equipment were lost in the disaster. There was damage onshore too, where a mosque, fuel station, five cars and motorcycles were destroyed. At least 10 wells, some groundwater reservoirs and farmland were overrun by seawater that surged up to 400 metres inland, rendering these resources unusable by local communities. The preliminary assessment was conducted in response to a request from the water and environment ministry and carried out between 5 and 11 February 2005. The report describes the time the inspectors were able to spend conducting the assessments as quite short and strongly recommends more comprehensive follow-up assessments of the damage to both humans living in the affected area and to the natural environment. It states that one such mission was planned for March 2005. However, the EEU and NGO officials confirmed that no follow-up assistance or assessment missions had been conducted to date.