A ship carrying 3,500 Somalis fleeing the conflict in Yemen arrived in Bossaso on 2 July. Puntland officials said it was the largest single influx of returning refugees since the war started in Yemen.
Puntland’s assistant minister for internal affairs, Abdullahi Hashi Qoobdeero, responsible for coordinating the reception and resettlement of the returning refugees, said a Somali businessman had chartered the cargo ship Nawal to bring the refugees home. Most were women and children.
The new arrivals were taken to a camp set up for them. Some were injured or sick and most looked frail and tired, according to health officers.
Dr Abdirahman Ali Abdirahman, a member of a health team providing medical assistance for the new arrivals, said four people with serious limb injuries were among the new arrivals. One of them, a young boy, had severe leg fractures, he said. Another six people were treated for diarrhoeal infection.
Ayan Abdi, a mother of five children, told Radio Ergo that one of her sons was killed on June 23 in a mortar attack in Basateen neighbourhood in Aden where she was living. She had made the decision after that to board the ship from Mukalla port.
Halima Yonis, an injured mother, said she had not received any treatment for shrapnel injuries from a mortar that hit near her home about 20 days ago.
Qoobdeero said most of the earlier refugee returnees from Yemen had been relocated to their original towns. Fifty people were still waiting transport to their home towns.
He said they had tasked a committee to help these people to return home. The process of their relocation would start on 4 July.
