Wild life | 25 October 2008

Yemen

For a fortnight our group has spent nights on the desert beaches east of Aden, looking out to sea. We strain to hear voices above the waves. At dawn the water’s surface is calm and dimpled with shoals of fish. The tide line is scattered with dead puffer fish, plastic rubbish, dolphin skulls. Fat yellow crabs gather behind your back and close in when you are not looking.

Each morning emaciated people emerge from the ocean in their dozens. They are Somalis fleeing war in Mogadishu, or Ethiopians escaping their overpopulated dustbowl.

Many die crossing the Gulf of Aden. The smugglers’ boats are crowded like slave ships. Passengers are beaten if they try to move in case the vessels capsize. Any trouble and the smugglers pitch them into the shark-infested depths. Boat people drown in storms, die of thirst, hunger or heat. They arrive like shipwreck survivors flayed by sun and caked in salt.