Yemen to deport 63 Ethiopian illegal immigrants

Yemen said Sunday it will deport about 63 Ethiopian illegal immigrants to their home country in a week.

The Ethiopians, all of them women, are now in the custody of the Immigration and Nationality Passports Authority in Taiz Province near western Red Sea, according to a statement from the Interior Ministry.

Necessary arrangements have been made for the deportation, it added.

So far this year Yemen has deported more than one thousand Ethiopian illegal immigrants.

Meanwhile, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)'s office in Yemen said in a Sunday news release that the nonstop influx of illegal immigrants and African refugees into Yemen posed an increasing burden on the Yemeni economy as the country received more 4,213 Somali refugees in April alone.

Yemeni officials said the country is confronting weekly arrivals of African illegal immigrants along with nearly daily arrivals of Somali refugees.

UN statistics show Yemen hosts 78,000 Somali refugees by the end of 2009, out of the total of 171,000 registered refugees, while Yemeni officials say many more Somalis in the country were unregistered.

Source: Xinhua