A course on migration-flow management for officials from Yemen, which each year sees over 100,000 immigrants arrive from the Horn of Africa, is now under way in Rome. The project, promoted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and organised by SudgestAid with the collaboration of Ancitel, envisages an information-register office system to improve refugee and asylum-seeker registration procedures.
A delegation from the Yemeni government will spend a week training with Italian experts. They will learn, for example, techniques on recognising those entitled to asylum or on digital identification. The Yemeni’s will also provide input on their country’s needs in this area.
Italian commitment to capacity building
As the Farnesina’s Deputy Director for the Mediterranean and Middle East, Mario Boffo, underscored, the project is part of Italy’s well-established capacity-building initiatives in a country undergoing a difficult transition. Yemen’s annual per capita income is just 2300 dollars, and the country is in 133rd place in the UN’s human development index.
Over a million refugees
The Yemeni Ambassador in Rome, Khalid Abdulrahman Al-Aakwa, underscored that his country “has not turned its back on immigrants, in spite of our limited resources”. However, given that the refugees number more than one million, “we cannot tackle the emergency alone”, he added. “Especially since Yemen is often just a stopover for refugees heading for richer countries, including those of the West”.
