A 16 February investigative report by Yemen’s Insan Organization for Rights and Freedoms, whose website has since been suspended, revealed alarming statistics detailing the Saudi-led coalition’s systematic targeting of Yemeni fishermen in the Red Sea since the start of the war.
According to the report titled “Unseen Tragedies in the Red Sea,” the Insan Organization’s investigation team has “monitored heinous crimes against fishermen at the hands of the coalition and the entities funded by it.” This includes mercenary groups and hired soldiers within the coalition armies, such as Eritrean military forces.
Yemeni fishermen are often victims of kidnapping, the looting of their boats and equipment, and arbitrary arrests and torture in coalition-run prisons, the Insan Organization says. It adds that hundreds of fishermen have been killed throughout the war due to Saudi-led coalition airstrikes and their exposure to naval mines.
Coalition forces have “directly killed 274 fishermen, some of whom were targeted by warplanes while fishing in the Red Sea,” SABA news agency cited the report as saying. Additionally, 476 fishing boats have been destroyed in the Red Sea.
Furthermore, 215 fishermen were disabled while kidnapped by coalition forces or their affiliated armed groups. One fisherman anonymously testified after being released by a ‘coalition-funded mercenary group,’ that he was “severely tortured, had his nails pulled out and was beaten with sticks in a detention center in the Midi district of Hajjah province, and that there are other fishermen who are tortured and deprived of the most basic rights.”
The report claims that in November 2019, a US navy battleship – the USS Forrest Sherman – rescued eleven Yemeni fishermen from drowning and handed them to the Coast Guard in Al-Mahra province’s Nishtun port. They are now in a detention center for ‘prisoners of war’ in the Saudi city of Khamis Mushait, as was reportedly confirmed by the father of one of the fishermen.
“2,000 fishermen have been kidnapped [by coalition troops or mercenaries] during the past seven years, including children fishing with their families, some of whom have been released and some of whom are still kidnapped, whose fate remains unknown,” the report was cited as saying.
On top of directly targeting Yemeni fishermen, the coalition is also involved in a campaign against their livelihood.
On 23 February, an official source from the Ministry of Fishing in Yemen’s Sanaa-based National Salvation Government (NSG) was quoted to have said in a report by SABA, released a day later, that the Saudi-led coalition directly prevents the country from exporting fish, further revealing that UAE and Saudi-backed mercenary groups have been consistently looting massive amounts of fish from Yemen’s markets. This has been ongoing for at least two years.
Coalition-backed mercenary groups, whose ranks are filled with ISIS and Al-Qaeda militants, have also been known to loot Yemen’s oil and the country’s antiquities.
The source accused the coalition countries and the “mercenary government” of the Saudi-backed administration – Yemen’s internationally recognized government – of depleting fish stocks and exporting thousands of tons of fish out of the country to the detriment of the fisherman community and the population to general. Coalition-backed authorities have also made fish products exorbitant and inaccessible to citizens.
Yemen’s fish stocks “are plundered … and exploited … with official permits by the occupying forces and foreign companies,” the source added.
This month, Saudi media reported that the internationally recognized government had been forced to suspend fish exports due to severe shortages in the market.