As World Bank and European Investment Bank discuss migration and displaced, refugees in Yemen feel neglected

[Deeq A.]

By Ahmed Abdi

Sana’a—  Tens of thousands of Refugees in Yemen feel neglected after UNHCR’s Mohamed Omar and Laila Mohamed Abdulrab discriminated urban refugees in Sana’a.

The Bureau of Refugee Affairs (BRA) at Algerian Street in Sana’a, a UNHCR’s Community Based Protection Unit, turn down the vulnerable refugees’ requests to share their concerns with the UNHCR protection counseling officials.

“I have been a refugee in Sana’a for 30 years and have never received healthcare, educational and financial assistance from UNHCR,” said Mohamed Nur Salad, a father of eleven children. “Whenever we approach BRA their response is always the same: We are not responsible for your affairs.”

Like Salad, dozens of refugees that I talked with told me that they could not afford to pay the room and their basic needs after losing their jobs as maidservants due to the Yemen conflict.

Kristalina Georgieva, CEO of the World Bank, discussed with Ambroise Fayolle, Vice President of the European Investment Bank about migration, displacement and refugees crisis on Monday.

Mrs. Georgieva has been fighting discrimination against women and children including those living for decades in the squalid refugee camp of Al-Kharaz in the South of Yemen and helped UNHCR officials in Geneva to remove infamous field officer, Emmanuel Uwurukundo, who was behind WFP food rations to end up in the open market in 2013.

“Gwendoline Mensah told us our last meeting that the UNHCR did not have any solution to our problems,” said one of the Migration and Refugee Studies Centre (MSRC) refugee officials, who declined to give his name.

Officials in UNHCR’s Bureau for the Refugee Affairs (BRA) were unavailable for comment.

In June 2017, Refugees community leaders protested in front of UNHCR’s country representative’s office and aired their voice through Yemen media.

Ayman Gharaibeh replaced former country representative Johannes van der Klaauw and has been here almost a year yet ignored the plight of the African refugees from Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia’s Oromia and Ogaden, according to Refugees Community leadership. They say Gharaibeh saved all his energy for displaced Yemeni population.