A view of Kharaz refugee camp set on the site of an old military base in south Yemen. Here 17,000 mainly Somali refugees endure the scalding hot sun and dry and dusty winds [Annasofie Flamand]
Published On 20 Nov 201020 Nov 2010
According to the UNHCR, in mid 2010, 600 families were waiting in tents to be moved into shelters [Annasofie Flamand]
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But with only 250 new shelters to move into and no money to build more, many will not even have four walls to call home [Annasofie Flamand]
Shelters in Kharaz do not have electricity, but each block has a water pump at its centre, from where children fill dozens of plastic containers each day [Hugh Macleod]
Young Somali mothers and their children face a bleak future in the camp, surviving on handouts and limited healthcare and education [Hugh Macleod]
But parents say it is better than seeing their young sons forcibly recruited into al-Shabab and other groups or having their daughters threatened with rape and murder if they refuse to marry one of the fighters [Hugh Macleod]
"The most common request from refugees in Kharaz camp is resettlement to a third country," said Rocco Nuri, the UNHCR Yemen external relations officer. "Unfortunately resettlement is not a right and only the most vulnerable refugees are given priority" [Hugh Macleod]
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Young Somali men face a tough time making a life in Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East. With an unemployment rate close to 40 per cent, many Somalis cannot find any work [Annasofie Flamand]
Fouad Moustafa, 22, set up the Kharaz gym with the help of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency. The refugee bodybuilder, who came to Kharaz from Mogadishu when he was 10, said: "We do not have any jobs so it is better for us to body build" [Hugh Macleod]
Waiting to be picked up by the Yemeni Red Cross, a young Somali woman, blind in one eye, sits exhausted after an overnight boat journey from Djibouti to Yemen [Hugh Macleod]
Halim Ibrahim, 22, paid $170 to make the relatively short half-day crossing from Djibouti to Yemen. Her parents paid for her to travel, hoping she could earn some money to send back to them. "I am feeling very sad leaving my country but my neighbourhood was being bombed," said Halim [Hugh Macleod]
Hansetta Uma did not want her experiences written down in a letter, fearing the consequences for the children she left behind in Somalia if word got back that she had refused to marry an al-Shabab fighter. Her husband was killed by a stray bullet in 2009. In the 1990s her father and brother were killed by fighters [Hugh Macleod]
Taking a break from serving rations of pulses at the monthly food distribution in the camp, Fatima Mahmoud Ali shows the scar on her arm from rough surgery to remove a piece of shrapnel from a mortar which exploded in her home in Mogadishu in 1991. Her mother, father and three brothers died in the explosion [Hugh Macleod]
Tempers run high at the monthly food distribution when a woman questions the size of her ration [Annasofie Flamand]
Kharaz is not only home to Somali refugees. When he was younger, Ethiopian Dawit as Safar had a cross carved into his forehead as a sign of his Christian faith. Relations with his Muslim Somali neighbours are tense - he says he was attacked by a group of Somalis. Unlike Somalis, Ethiopians do not get de facto refugee status on entering Yemen, meaning the authorities can and do arrest and deport them [Annasofie Flamand]
