Major increase in Yemeni refugees to South Korea sparks organised anti-asylum movement

Online petition asking president to stop taking asylum seekers receives more than 714,000 supporters

A subtropical island famed for its turquoise seas, female divers and golf courses, Jeju has attracted South Korean honeymooners for decades. In recent months, however, the resort island has been receiving a new type of visitor — asylum seekers fleeing the catastrophe in Yemen.

Hani al-Junaid, a 37-year-old journalist, is one of them.

“There was no safe place in Yemen for me to hide,” said Mr Junaid, whose reporting on the Yemen conflict — called “the world’s largest humanitarian crisis” by the United Nations — made him many enemies among the country’s armed groups.

He landed on Jeju, off the country’s southern coast, in May, and is still waiting for the South Korean authorities to act on his refugee application.

“I heard South Korea was open for Yemenis,” he said.

Not quite.

The arrival of hundreds of Yemenis has created a wave of opposition, leading to what is considered South Korea’s first organised anti-asylum movement.

“Let’s kick out fake refugees!” people shouted during a rally on 30 June on the island, part of a wave of anti-immigrant fervour sweeping the country, with similar protests on Jeju and elsewhere, including in Seoul, throughout the summer.

An online petition asking South Korea's president, Moon Jae-in, to stop taking in asylum seekers has drawn more than 714,000 supporters, a record for such a petition.

Taken aback, the government of Mr Moon, himself a son of wartime refugees from North Korea, has vowed to revise the laws to tighten screening of refugee applicants.

Why Jeru?

Jeju’s popularity as a domestic vacation spot has been waning, as South Koreans with rising incomes have begun flying to more far-flung destinations abroad.

So to revitalise the tourist industry, the island was granted permission in 2002 to introduce a no-visa policy for most foreign visitors, which filled its hotels with tourists from China and Southeast Asia.

When AirAsia began running direct budget flights from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Jeju in December, the island suddenly caught the attention of Yemeni asylum seekers, who saw it as a stepping-stone into mainland South Korea because they, too, were exempt from visas.

Thousands of Yemenis had fled to Malaysia because of the Muslim connection and because the country did not require tourist visas for them. But they could not stay there more than 90 days, and the country would not grant them refugee status, so Jeju beckoned as a safe haven.

In the first five months of this year, 561 Yemenis arrived, up from 51 for all of last year.

Mr Junaid, who arrived on 29 May, made it just in time. On 1 June, South Korea added Yemen to the list of 11 other countries that need visas to enter Jeju.

On 30 April, a month before Mr Junaid showed up, the government had banned the 487 Yemeni asylum seekers still on Jeju from leaving for the mainland while their applications for refugee status were reviewed.

“Jeju was our best option,” said Jamal Nasiri, 43, a former agricultural official in Yemen, who came here in May with his wife and five daughters, aged 8 to 18. “We think about our future, how to keep our children safe and send them to school for a better life, because we are humans.”

Muaadh Galal Mohammed al-Razeqee and his pregnant wife fled Yemen in May and disembarked in Jeju six days later, taking a $150 (£114) AirAsia flight for the last leg of the trip from Malaysia.

“In Yemen, bomb, bomb, bomb every time.” Mr Razeqee said. “No water, no electricity, no job, no school, no nothing. How can I give a good life for my son? Word spread about Jeju, and I heard I may have a chance.”

The Red Cross and local groups have pitched in to help the asylum seekers, offering medical assistance, food and blankets while they await decisions on their applications. Mr Razeqee and his wife found temporary shelter when an American English teacher agreed to share her apartment.

But not all on Jeju have been so welcoming.

‘Who Comes First?’

While the few hundred Yemenis here make up a tiny percentage of the island’s population of 660,000, their presence has generated a lot of concern, even fear.

“If these people are safe, why doesn’t the government let them move on to the mainland as they wanted to?” said Kim Jin-yi, 32, who attended the Jeju protest.

South Korea takes pride in its homogeneous society and has long been averse to accepting asylum seekers. Because of its location, the country has not been a major destination for refugees, aside from those fleeing North Korea, who are generally accepted as compatriots.

But that has been changing since 2013, when South Korea, under pressure from rights groups, adopted a new law providing protection for refugees. The number of asylum applicants has risen since to 9,942 last year from 2,896 in 2014.

As the number grows, so does public wariness, with the tensions exacerbated on Jeju since the Yemenis have been confined there.

“Who comes first, our own people or refugees?” chanted about 50 protesters, most of them women, who marched in the rain around Jeju City Hall.

More than 90 per cent of Yemeni asylum seekers on Jeju are men. They say they just want a safe place to work, but some islanders said they were so scared of the migrants they were afraid to let their children play outdoors.

“When they move in groups, women avoid them,” said Byun Jin-young, 40, a mother of two.

On the internet, fear-mongers warn in Korean of an invasion of Arab terrorists or rapists.

“From an early age, they learn to treat women like sex slaves and to beat them as they like,” said Yang Eun-ok, 70, a leader of the Jeju protest, channelling some of that anti-Islamic sentiment. “They can take many wives and produce many children. Now, there are 500 of them. In 10 and 20 years, how many of them will there be?”

The New York Times