No. of Yemenis seeking asylum on Jeju Island surges
Yemenis wait for a taxi at the Jeju International Airport on May 5. Yemen's civil war is forcing many Yemenis to seek refuge in other countries. / Yonhap
By Jung Da-min
Over 130 refugees from Yemen applied for legal refugee status at the Jeju Immigration Service May 1-8.
This followed 90 Yemenis who arrived on the island up until April and applied this year.
None have been approved so far. The only person to gain refugee status since the law was enacted in 2013 was a Chinese who helped North Korean defectors.
Up until May 7, 325 Yemenis had landed on the island this year, skyrocketing from 52 last year and 10 in 2016.
Only three officials are coping with the “flood” of cases, with one being a regular staff officer in charge of the refugee determination process.
Civil war in Yemen, at the southern end of Saudi Arabian Peninsula, is causing the refugee increase.
Jeju Island has been allowing foreigners to come without visas since 2001 to promote tourism.
Except for 11 countries, including Syria, Iran and Nigeria, foreigners can stay on the island for 30 days.
If refugees apply for legal status, they can get a certification of alien registration during the process, which takes about months.
The number of overall refugee applicants on Jeju has also been rising, hitting 369 for the January-April period this year. There were 227 applications in 2015 and 312 last year.
Nationwide, the number of refugee applications reached 5,436 in the first four months of this year.
There were 9,942 applicants last year and 121 were granted refugee status ― 11 of them from Yemen.