If Yemeni refugees flood Djibouti, chaos looms

You can’t make up some of this stuff. For nearly two decades Somalis crossed in their thousands to seek refuge in Yemen. Many perished in the treacherous Gulf of Aden crossing.

Now the tables have turned. Dozens of Yemenis have crossed the same Gulf of Aden to get to Somalia and Djibouti and Somaliland as they flee fighting and Saudi Arabia-led air strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

In recent days, 240 refugees from Yemen have registered in Djibouti, and aid agencies have said they are preparing for a “big influx” as refugees who are on the way make landing, and the fighting escalates.

However, as Yemenis flee to Somalia, despite the war, Somali refugees are still continuing to arrive in Yemen to escape violence and poverty at home. They are joining nearly 240,000 Somali refugees who are already in Yemen.

Don’t be surprised if, taking advantage of the lack of a central government and the chaos, more Somalis end up arriving in Yemen than Yemeni’s escaping to Somalia.

So why should Africa pay attention?

For starters, it involves the largest number of African countries in a military campaign outside the continent since the 1990 US invasion of Iraq. Egypt, Morocco, and Sudan have jumped into the fight against Houthi rebels.

Then, though the Houthis are not fans of Al Qaeda, the chaos enabled Qaeda fighters to attack a prison in the Yemeni city of Al Mukallah, and free nearly 300 of their comrades.

If the influx of Yemeni refugees does indeed happen, some Qaeda members could make their way into Somalia and join forces with their Al Shabaab allies in some kind of militant exchange programme.

It’s hard to say whether that or the new dynamics in the Horn of Africa, with the US and France having bases in Djibouti, will play to Shabaab’s advantage or not. I think they will profit from it; something that those fighting it probably didn’t foresee.

Beyond that, as Uganda learnt from the 2010 Kampala bombings, and Kenya in the various Shabaab attacks that have killed over 450 people since it went into Somalia in October 2011, when you fight a war in a foreign land it tends to follow you back home.

In all probability, then, Egypt, Morocco, and Sudan, could face some kind of blowback from their role in the Yemen war.

But perhaps more intriguing, is what will happen to especially Djibouti should the trickle of Yemeni refugees turn into a flood.

The population of Djibouti is about 924,000. The estimated population of Somalia is 10 million. The population of Yemen is 26 million — more than twice that of Somalia and Djibouti combined.

It is not inconceivable that should the Yemen war escalate, and especially were Iran to be drawn in more directly to support its Houthi proxies, that the flight of Yemenis to Djibouti and Somalia could turn into an avalanche. What is there to prevent the number of refugees in Djibouti being higher than its population? Nothing.