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European Commission raises refugee aid to Yemen

16 January 2011 02:02 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The European Commission announced on Saturday a considerable increase of humanitarian aid to Yemen to 15 million euros (19.5 million U.S. dollars) to help the country handle an influx of refugees and internally displaced civilians, APA reports quoting Xinhua News Agency.

EU Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response Kristalina Georgieva arrived in Yemen in a joint mission with the official of UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to inspect situations of internally displaced civilians in north Yemen and humanitarian challenges posed by the continuing influx of African refugees.

"After the visit with the UN official to the camps of Somali refugees and internally displaced Yemeni civilians, it is clear that Yemen needs to create more education opportunities and improve its infrastructure," Georgieva told reporters at the conference.

She said that the current humanitarian aid to the refugees in Yemen is much less than their requirement.

For his part, UNHCR official Antonio Guterres appreciated Yemen ’s efforts in receiving foreign refugees, and called for donor countries to increase humanitarian aid to refugees and internally displaced civilians in Yemen.

"I have to say sometimes I feel frustrated with the international community, when I see that they too much focused on security issues and terrorism, not taking into account that the best way to guaranty peace and security is to fight poverty, is to engage in development, is to create jobs, is to help a country assist itself in resolving the problems of its people," he added.

The UNHCR said last April that escalating influx of African refugees posed a heavy burden on Yemen’s limited resources.

A recent statistic released by the UNHCR office in Yemen showed that the number of African refugees who arrived in Yemen from January to November 2010 had amounted to 42,322.