Seventy-nine fishermen arrived on the coast of the city of Al-Khawkhah in Hodeidah Governorate. The Eritrean authorities released them, after months of detention and torture.

Many fishermen in Eritrean prisons were subjected to ill-treatment, including physical and psychological torture and hard labor.

The fishermen pointed out that the concerned authorities neglected their suffering, and that their families paid the costs of oil derivatives, supplies, etc., despite their paying revenues estimated at millions to the local authority in the governorate.

Many Yemenis in coastal cities depend on the fishing profession, in light of the deteriorating living conditions and high prices, which doubles the suffering in the Arab country, which has been witnessing a war for about 9 years.

Fishermen are constantly being kidnapped by Eritrean forces from the open sea, and Yemeni officials say that Yemeni fishermen have become persecuted and persecuted by Eritrean patrols and by Houthi sea mines, and they are unable to fish north of the city of Hodeidah or near Bab al-Mandab, as the Red Sea has become a military zone. Dangerous

Activists say that what Yemeni fishermen are exposed to is “illegal piracy and blatant assault on Yemeni citizens by the Eritrean authorities, who are exploiting the state of war and internal conflict that Yemen is going through.”

Eritrean naval forces are kidnapping Yemeni fishermen near Zuqar Island and the Greater and Lesser Hanish Archipelago, even though it is an area in Yemeni territorial waters.

Yemen and Eritrea had previously disputed over the islands of the Hanish Archipelago, located between the coasts of the two countries, near the Bab al-Mandab Strait linking the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, before an international arbitration court ruled in favor of Yemen in 1998.