Syrians escape to Yemen

Fleeing the bloodshed of civil war in Syria, Yosra Mustafa and 15 members of her family crossed into Turkey, but found life there too expensive. They tried their luck with Jordan, but were refused entry. Lebanon also came to nothing.

Never would they have expected to end up in Yemen, one of the world's poorest countries, itself torn by Islamist insurgency, rebellion by a northern Shiite group and separatist unrest in the south.

"There is nowhere else to go to now. We're begging on the streets," said Mustafa, who, dressed in black from head to toe, stationed herself at one of Sanaa's main thoroughfares hoping cars would slow down to give her a few Yemeni riyals.

Bruno Geddo, representative in Yemen of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said the country already hosts 240,000 refugees from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Iraq. But the scale of the Syrian conflict, which has virtually laid waste to Mustafa's hometown of Aleppo, seems to have prompted people "to run in all directions".

Reuters