Yemen frees Ethiopians held by gunman seeking ransom
Ethiopian migrants sleep out in the open near a transit centre where they wait to be repatriated in the western Yemeni town of Haradh, on the border with Saudi Arabia, March 29, 2012. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
SANAA, March 29 (Reuters) – Yemeni police have freed 21 Ethiopian illegal migrants who were tortured by armed men to force their relatives in Saudi Arabia to send ransom money, the government said on Thursday.
The group, which included 14 women, were held in a house in Hajja province near the border with Saudi Arabia, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
“Security forces stormed the building, arresting three of the kidnappers, including two who were torturing the Ethiopians with electric cables and iron chains,” it said.
“The Ethiopians said during investigations that their kidnappers wanted to force them to contact their families who are in Saudi Arabia to send money to secure their release.”
It said the Ethiopians had been transferred to a U.N. refugee centre ahead of repatriation.
Yemen, which has been in turmoil over the past year as protesters forced veteran leader Ali Abdullah Saleh from power, is a destination point for refugees from Horn of Africa countries although it is one of the world’s poorest nations.
Many hope to cross the porous mountain border with Saudi Arabia, an affluent Gulf oil producer.
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i wached yhe horible picture of my people oromo refugee in yemen iknow it is disturbing but also iknow this will give us strengeth and unity more than ever for lebiration of oromiyaa
together unless we stand as one and fight we can not get no where at all the solution for our people suffering is luck of freedom, liberty and social justice to get it it is in our hand standup egnite the fire of lebiration and lets stick and lineup behand our vagard who fight truely to answer oromo qestion for once and for ever with ABO(OLF) on other option at all Oromiyaa Shall Be Free
and we will never forget what yemen did to our people
BUt on our soil we aloud them to live like a king and aloud them to even maried our sisters
it is shame on U.N for not protecting political refugees right in yemen specialy oromo refugees right in yemen, somaliland, kenya, Sudan and so on it seems to me that U.N make agreement with meles zenawi to force oromo people from their land to kill them tacticfull killing but this type of U.N deniya is unacceple to us we our arging U.N to standup for oromo refugees around the world and save their live from death thankyou