News - Yemen: The General Authority for Fisheries in the Red Sea condemned, Sunday, the Eritrean navy pirates who kidnapped 139 Yemeni fishermen while they were fishing in Yemeni sea waters.

The statement indicated that those who were kidnapped are from the two districts of Al-Mukha, Taiz governorate, and Al-Khoukha, Al-Hodeidah governorate, including 23 fishermen who are not over the legal age.

It added that the detainees were taken to a torture camp on the Eritrean coast, to practice all kinds of torture against them and confiscate their property and fishing equipment.

The authority helds the United Nations and its organizations to be fully responsible for the continued silence towards the criminal practices of Eritrean sea pirates against Yemeni fishermen.

It called on them to quickly assume their role by taking serious and urgent action to release the detained fishermen and their fishing equipment, and to work to stop all recurring criminal acts against all fishermen.

Recently, the local authority in the governorate called on the UN, the Security Council and international organizations to take a stand against this crime, and the previous crimes against fishermen, and to hold the perpetrators accountable.

Saudi Arabia and many of its allies have been waging a war on Yemen since 2015 to restore power to the country’s Riyadh-friendly former officials. The war and a simultaneous siege that the US-Saudi-led coalition has been enforcing on the country has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis.

The invasion has pushed entire Yemen close to the brink of outright famine, turning the country into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Coastal communities in Yemen have suffered greatly in the ongoing bloody war. Fishing boats, ports and processing sites have been destroyed or damaged, and many fishermen have lost their lives. 

The US-Saudi-led coalition launched airstrikes which hit fishing boats and markets, and mines were laid in the sea making the waters treacherous. To make matters worse, the exacerbation of piracy and attacks by the Eritrean authorities and the aggression forces against fishermen on the Yemeni coasts.

As of August 2019, at least 334 fishermen had been reported killed or injured since 2015, according to statistics from Yemen's fisheries authority. Others had been arrested and had their boats seized, while some were now detained in Saudi-run prisons in Yemen.

Local reports estimate that of Yemen's approximate 100,000 fishermen, since 2015 over a third (37,000) have quit and thus lost their income.