On 13 August 2007, Alkarama for Human Rights wrote to the Ambassador of Yemen, the High Commissioner for Refugees, the Minister of Human Rights Huda Ali Abd al-Latif Al Ban, the Minister of the Interior Rashed Muhammad Al Alimi, the Attorney General Abdallah Al-Alufi, and the President of Yemen Al Fariq Ali Abdallah Salih, calling on them to intervene in the case of nine Eritreans who, having fled their country, were arrested on their arrival in Yemen even though they had presented themselves to the authorities and asked for asylum.

These people, all but one of whom were soldiers, had deserted the army and fled their country on board an Eritrean army boat and had landed at the port of Midi in Hijja province on 17 July 2007.  They immediately presented themselves to the Yemeni authorities, asking for political asylum.  In their hearings with the competent authorities, they explained that they had been conscripted into the army against their will to perform their obligatory military service and had been kept in the army longer than the legal period of mobilisation. They also affirmed that they had been repeatedly maltreated for having asked to leave the army after the end of their military service, and that they refused to fight Eritrea’s southern wars against its neighbours.  They said they were discriminated against and treated like slaves, working without pay, and that their being kept in the army illegally was causing great problems for their families, deprived of their wages.  Yet they were taken to the capital, Sanaa, and put in Jawazat prison, where they remain today in terrible conditions, anxious about their future.