UN calls on donors to help repair tsunami damage to Yemen’s fishing industry

Fishing communities in Yemen were much more seriously affected by last December’s Indian Ocean tsunami than originally thought, and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today appealed to donors for $2.2 million for a rehabilitation project to help some 2,000 households.

“Many fishermen have not been fishing for six months now,” said FAO expert Hans Båge, who led a fact-finding mission to the country last month. “They will only be able to start again in September when the present monsoon stops, and if they receive proper assistance.”

The mission, requested by the Yemeni authorities, surveyed 34 coastal communities in the Al Mahara district and on the Socotra Islands, situated south of Yemen's mainland off the north-eastern tip of Somalia.

“We found that while the damage was less than in countries closer to the epicentre of the earthquake, there were significant impacts on the livelihoods of local people, especially fishermen,” Mr. Båge said of the tsunami, which overall killed more than 200,000 people and caused billions of dollars of damage in a dozen Indian Ocean nations.

High waves damaged boats, engines and fishing gear as well as infrastructure vital to Yemen’s fishing sector, such as ice plants, storage sheds and jetties, with 653 boats, 569 engines 1,625 nets and 16,980 fishing traps either damaged or completely destroyed, according to the latest estimates made by the joint FAO/Government mission.

Many landing beaches and natural harbours were also destroyed. The project would provide essential fishing inputs, such as nets, hooks, fishing line and spare engine parts and repair or replace boats, engines and fishing gear.