Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
From Yemen to Korea isle and no farther
500, who made it before door shut, stranded on Jeju
JEJU, South Korea — This is the end of the line for hundreds of Yemeni refugees fleeing war 5,000 miles away.
The setting is a new one in a world of migrants and asylum-seekers on the move: a resort island off South Korea’s southern coast where tourists come to dive the reefs, golf and eat local seafood specialties.
But the wider story unfolding on Jeju Island is familiar. It is about desperate people looking for any loopholes or undiscovered pathways on the migrant trails crisscrossing the globe, seeking a place willing to take them in.
It is how Africans have shown up on the U.S.-Mexico border after an overland trek from Brazil, how Syrians came ashore on Greek beaches in 2015 and how Iranians are among those in holding camps on the Pacific island nation of Nauru. And how South Korea is now thrust into a refugee quandary that caught it by surprise.
Jeju’s improbable turn began in early spring.
Word was out already of Jeju’s tourist-friendly visa policies, making it one of the few places that did not require advance visas for Yemenis. A few Yemenis reached Jeju in recent years to make claims for refugee status in South Korea.
What changed this year was a new direct flight to Jeju on a budget airline from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, which also grants Yemenis a visa on arrival.
At first, a trickle of Yemenis arrived in Jeju. Then many more — all willing to risk all their savings to flee more than four years of warfare and deepening humanitarian miseries.
The hope was that Jeju would be a springboard to reach Seoul and apply for refugee protections.
But South Korean officials quickly blocked Yemenis from leaving the island, and on June 1, Jeju dropped Yemen from the no-visa rules to join a handful of other countries including Syria, Iran and Nigeria.
The more than 500 Yemenis who made it to Jeju before the door closed — mostly men, but some families with children — are stranded.
They can’t reach the mainland, and few have the money or inclination to return to Malaysia.
“We are not wanted anywhere,” said Ahmed Abdu, 23, who left Ibb in central Yemen in April on a more than $2,000 trip that transited through Jordan and Qatar, then to Kuala Lumpur and on to Jeju.
“America doesn’t want us. Europe doesn’t want us. Saudi Arabia doesn’t want us. When we heard about Jeju, we thought, ‘Maybe this is a place that can save us.’ ”
He paused to think about what he just said. “We can’t leave. That is true,” he added. “But we are alive. We are not worrying about war. That is something very good.”
Abdu, like many Yemenis in rebel-held territory, was caught between both sides.
His neighborhood was blasted by waves of Saudiled airstrikes — using U.S.made warplanes and weaponry — against rebel fighters, known as the Houthi, controlling most of northern Yemen.
Riyadh and its allies claim the Houthi receive direct support from Iran, something Tehran officials deny. Abdu did not want to talk about how many relatives and friends had been killed. “Many,” he said. The tipping point came after Houthi forces tried to conscript young men in his area, he said.
“I knew there was no way I could remain.”
Yemen continues to sink deeper into chaos. A push by Saudi-led forces to claim the port of Hodeida, a crucial entry point for fuel, medicine and other supplies, has touched off another civilian exodus, and international aid groups warn that a fight for the city could be another staggering blow to the country.
At first, Abdu and the other Yemenis arriving in Jeju, which has a population of about 600,000, were left to fend for themselves. They piled into hostels, cheap hotels and campgrounds, getting an occasional meal from a restaurant or volunteers.
Slowly, some help has taken shape.
More than 200 Yemenis recently received free health screenings by the Korean Red Cross and lined up for jobs arranged by Jeju officials while their refugee status was being assessed, which could take months or longer.
Some took tough work that Koreans do not want — on fishing boats or fish farms making the legal minimum wage of about $1,500 a month.
The luckier ones found jobs in restaurant kitchens. A local migrant aid society — normally dealing with Filipinos and other Asians — started Korean language classes for Yemenis.
But the Yemenis in Jeju have opened a difficult conversation in a nation where only a small fraction of refugees have been approved to stay since the 1990s. Last year, South Korea finished review for 6,015 refugee claims, rejecting all but 91 of them, according to South Korea’s Justice Ministry.
Eleven of the Yemenis who passed through Jeju in earlier years were among those granted refugee status.
“About 500 people from Yemen may not seem like a lot for countries that have dealt with hundreds of thousands, even millions, of refugees and people fleeing war,” said Lee Il, a rights attorney with Seoul-based Advocates for Public Interest Law. “Here, it has forced people to think about the wider world of suffering and, in a rich country, how we fit in.”
On May 31, the Yemeni arrivals sparked perhaps the first anti-immigrant march in Jeju, an island still identified by many South Koreans as the scene of bloody anti-communist purges by the U.S.-backed government in Seoul before the Korean War. The demonstrators complained that Jeju’s visa-free program has been “abused as a gateway for illegal entry” into South Korea.
In Seoul, an online petition calling for South Korea to pause allowing any more refugees cleared 200,000 shows of support last week on the presidential Blue House website, meaning the government must issue a response within 30 days.
The answer does not have any legal force but can indicate a direction for policy.
Kim Eui-keum, a spokesman for South Korea’s presidential office, has said police patrols on Jeju will be stepped up to “avoid unnecessary clashes or interference.”
Jeju’s governor, Won Hee-ryong, told a meeting last week he thinks authorities and private businesses should help the Yemenis.
“Jeju can set an example for the first refugee crisis our country is facing,” he said.
Still, resources are thin. There was only one immigration investigator on Jeju to hear refugee cases when the Yemenis began to arrive. Just two people on the island spoke Arabic.
“I thought I’d be in Jeju maybe two weeks and then head onto Seoul,” said Gamdan, a 36-year-old from Yemen’s capital, Sanna, who arrived in Jeju in May. “It was a big surprise when I learned that I wasn’t going anywhere.”