Hudaydah – Saba:
After being kidnapped, imprisoned, and tortured for months, 67 Yemeni fishermen have been freed by the Eritrean government.
Eight of the fishermen, who were today received at the fishing port in Hudaydah, stated that the Eritrean navy had kidnapped them and taken them to its jails when they were fishing with other fishermen from Khokha in Yemeni territorial seas.
The fishermen who were freed indicated that in addition to starvation, their belongings and fishing gear had been seized, and they had endured different sorts of torture and hard labor.
67 fishermen have been released, including eight from Hudaydah and 59 from Khokha, according to Abdulmalik Sabrah, the deputy chairman of the General Authority for Fishery Resources in the Red Sea.
He saw the repeated targeting of fishermen by the Eritrean government and navy as a violation of international conventions and norms. In order to free the remaining Yemeni fishermen detained in Eritrea and put an end to all crimes against them, he called on the international community and human rights organizations to urgently intervene.
The chairman of the Fishermen’s Forum, Mohammed Al-Hassani, and the director general of ports and fish landing centers at the authority, Aziz Al-Attini, both said that the fishermen who arrived at the port had been subjected to arbitrary acts within Eritrean prisons. They confirmed that hundreds of Yemeni fishermen are still languishing there and being tortured.
