News - Yemen: The Ministry of Fisheries condemned, Sunday, the Eritrean authorities' continued violation of Yemen's sovereignty and kidnapping fishermen after looting their boats.

"The Eritrean authorities kidnapped six fishermen from Al-Sabaliyah in Al-Hawk District, Al-Hodeidah Governorate, while they were fishing in the island of Sawaba," the Ministry of Fisheries said in a statement.

The statement pointed out that Yemeni waters suffer from piracy and kidnapping of fishermen since the beginning of the US-Saudi aggression against Yemen.

The ministry holds the US-Saudi aggression to be fully responsible for all the violations and crimes that the fishermen are subjected to, as well as the damage and losses suffered by the fishing sector. 

On August, Ministry of Fisheries announced kidnapping of 139 Yemeni fishermen by Eritrean authorities from the city of Mocha in Taiz governorate and Khokha in Hodeidah governorate, including 23 minors, while they were fishing in Yemen territorial waters.

The Ministry of Fisheries called on the Eritrean authorities to quickly release them, and all the kidnapped fishermen in its prisons, calling on the United Nations and its humanitarian and human rights organizations to play their role in the face of the kidnapping crimes of Yemeni fishermen by the authorities in Eritrea.

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.