No US embassy help for Yemeni-Americans stranded in Djibouti

A number of Yemeni-Americans who have fled the Saudi aggression against the war-torn Arab country are left stranded in neighboring Djibouti as the US embassy providing them with no assistance, Press TV reports.

The Yemeni-Americans are living under dire conditions at refugee camps in Djibouti.

The refugees arrived in Djibouti after the US said last month it had no immediate plans to conduct evacuation operations for its nationals in war-hit Yemen, Press TV's correspondent Yousef Mawry, said on Friday, adding the US had urged them to flee the raging crisis in Yemen by sea.

Mawry, who was among the stranded Yemeni-Americans, said they were told that they would be traveling with "a decent ship" and would be provided with all basic necessities, but to their dismay, the vessel was in fact "a cargo ship used to carry live cattle such as sheep."

He said that they were forced to sleep on hard wood, adding that the ship was not very clean, either. He said that they were in a very dire condition for 22 hours.

According to the Press TV correspondent, their US passports were taken when they arrived in Djibouti and they were treated as refugees. They were provided with no food or water with many children passing out because of dehydration.

He said that they contacted the US embassy, but did not receive any assistance, adding that they were "forced to be refugees."

Meanwhile, dozens of Yemeni-Americans have filed lawsuits against the US government for not taking action to protect their nationals in Yemen.

The stranded people accuse Washington of abandoning them by refusing to take any concrete steps to save their lives.
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Yemen has also been under Saudi airstrikes since March 26. The military aggression carried out without a UN mandate is meant to restore power to fugitive former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a close ally of the Riyadh regime.

In its latest acts of aggression, the Saudi military carried out artillery and rocket attacks on several areas in Sa’ada and Hajjah provinces. Saudi warplanes also targeted a military camp in Ma’rib Province. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Earlier, fighter jets targeted a residential area and a school in northern Sa’ada Province as well as a mosque, a government complex and a central market in the province's Malahid district.

According to the UN, about 2,000 people have been killed and more than 500,000 displaced as a result of the conflict in Yemen.  

AR/NN/HMV

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