The other migrant crisis: South Korea cracks down on Yemeni refugees

A family sit in a makeshift shelter at camp for displaced Yemeni
citizens

South Korea’s Justice Ministry has announced that the
country’s asylum laws are to be revised,
as a sudden influx of Yemen refugees sparks an anti-migrant
backlash.

More than 552 people from Yemen arrived in the East Asian
nation between January and May, the ministry said. Prior to this
year, a total of just 430 Yemenis had ever applied for
refugee status in South Korea, Reuters reports.

The new arrivals are being held at a centre on the southern
island of Jeju, a popular summer resort that, in an effort to
promote tourism, allows foreign visitors to stay for 30 days
without a visa, says The Korea Times.

The refugees’ arrival has been met with suspicion in the
highly ethnically homogenous nation, which has granted asylum to
only 839 people since 1994.

More than 540,000 South Koreans have signed
an online petition to the presidential Blue House in
the past two weeks, asking the government to abolish abolish
or amend no-visa entries and the granting of refugee status to
applicants.

“Nearly 400 petitions that include the word refugee can be found
on Cheong Wa Dae’s [Blue House] website”, many of which claim that
“the presence of refugees expose Koreans to violent crimes”,
says The Korea Herald.

Human rights campaigners have dismissed allegations that the
Yemenis have come to South Korea seeking economic
advantage, pointing instead to the violent civil war tearing the
Gulf nation apart. Around 190,000 people have
fled Yemen since the conflict began in March 2015.

The National Human Rights
Commission of Korea (NHRCK)
has urged the government in Seoul to improve the poor conditions
for the asylum seekers on Jeju.

“The Justice Ministry is confining refugees to Jeju Island
without any appropriate measures in place,” said Kim
Seong-in, who heads the Refugee Network’s Jeju
countermeasures committee.

The Justice Ministry is blocking the refugees from leaving
Jeju, and stopped no-visa entry onto the island for Yemeni citizens
at the beginning of this month.

“Because of the lack of a refugee support system on Jeju
Island, refugees are waiting forever for their refugee status
reviews,” said NHRCK chair Lee Sung-ho.