Kenyan war victims return from Yemen

Nasra Ali’s family with Haki Africa officials. [PHOTOS: Maarufu Mohamed/STANDARD]

Kenya: Some Kenyans fleeing Yemeni's civil conflict have arrived in the country leaving behind hundreds of others.

Most of the Kenyans living in Yemen are from the coastal region. About 300 Kenyans were evacuated on two flights booked by the Foreign Affairs ministry.

A family that arrived on one of the flights recounted the horror Kenyans and foreigners trapped in Yemen are facing.

The family, fresh from abandoning two fully-furnished houses it owned in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, to dodge indiscriminate bombings, had to cross through hostile deserts to reach the safety of the Omani border and territory from where they were picked by Kenyan officials.

Most of those we spoke to claimed to have travelled on temporary documents supplied by the Kenyan High Commission at Yemeni's border with Oman after trekking for days.

Others like Ruweida Abdiaziz lost her life savings and fixed assets in Sanaa, which she had called home for three decades and had vowed not to return to Kenya.

She claimed that she knew several Kenyans who were killed in the aerial bombardments especially in Sanaa and Aden.

"Many Kenyans are stranded in Aden and Northern Yemen where they are trying to leave by sea or cross into the Jizan town of Saudi Arabia," she said, claims which The Standard could not independently verify.

While one family was celebrating a safe evacuation from the safety of Mombasa, another in Mombasa's Old Town was living in fear and anxiety after losing contact with its kin; a retired nurse, her son and daughter.

Relatives of Samira Abeid who went to Yemen over two decades ago said they had neither heard from her nor received word of her whereabouts from anyone including the Yemeni consulate in Mombasa for more than a month now.

"Since news of the war reached us, we have had sleepless nights and we are concerned about the safety of my sister and her children," said Ms Abeid's sister, Sauda Aziz.

Living on hope

Ms Aziz said despite having not heard from her sister, they were holding their breath believing that their relatives travelled to the Yemen–Saudi border point, from where they can cross over to the Saudi Kingdom before connecting to Kenya.

She said they have sought help from the Yemeni consul in Mombasa, Saleh Shigog, who is in touch with the Yemeni authorities.

Efforts to reach Sheikh Shigog to ascertain the number of Kenyans stranded in Yemen through an aide were fruitless by the time we went to press.

"Every day, we hear about Saudi air strikes and my sister told me during one of our conversations that they escaped death miraculously after a bomb hit and destroyed their home," she said.

The family had a home in Sanaa, one of the major cities affected in Yemen.

Aziz gave the name of her sister's child as Hawida who is a mother to three children; Heba, 18, Sijaa, 6, and Ahmed, 4.

Meanwhile, the family of expectant mother Nasra Mohamed Ali, 33, whose plight The Standard had highlighted, counts itself more ucky than many Kenyans trapped in Yemen after she, together with her sister, safely landed home.

Ms Ali said they spent 20 days travelling by road, dodging bombs and shells until they reached the Omani border where they stayed for three days as Kenyan officials prepared temporary travel documents.

Ali returned without her husband, a Kenyan whom she claims disappeared four years ago and used to work for a Yemeni gas and petroleum company.

She was at work at night as a saleswoman in a marketing company in Sanaa when the Saudi-led coalition began bombing Houthi rebels.

"I ran back home and early the next day, we packed our bags, withdrew our children from school and took a bus to Mukalla (in Southern Yemen)," she said.

They spent two and half days on a journey that normally took them 12 hours due to delays caused by bombing, checkpoints and snipers.

They stayed in Mukalla (where she had a second home that she found ransacked) for 20 days before crossing into Oman.

After three days in the border town of Mazuiyana, they met Kenya's High Commissioner Sheikh Dor Mohamed and took a bus to Salala from where they flew to Doha in Qatar.

She and her family arrived in Nairobi last Thursday on a Qatar Airways plane before traveling to Mombasa by bus.

An estimated 300 Kenyans have made it back to the country.

Some of the returnees are teachers employed in international schools, private security guards and hotel workers.