Efter at have været udsat for hårde racistiske overgreb harmes akhdam-folket over regeringens passivitet i sagen. Akhdam-folket, cirka en million, udgør den laveste klasse i samfundet og har ikke fået glæde af begyndende reformer.
SANA’A, 21 April 2012, IRIN News. Authorities in Yemen are yet to resolve the “marginalization” of the minority Akhdam people, weeks after thousands protested in the capital Sana’a over low pay and lack of work contracts, say community members.
“The Akhdam are not simply second class citizens,” a protester said from his tent in Change Square. “They are more like fifth or sixth class citizens; the lowest class in the whole republic.”
Long history
Despite speaking Arabic and practising Islam in the country for over 1,000 years, the Akhdam, who prefer to be called Al Muhamasheen, or “marginalized ones”, have never felt a part of the majority.
The most visible marker of the Akhdam’s status in Yemeni society is the menial occupations they perform. Men roam the streets on 10-hour shifts sweeping and collecting rubbish, while women and children collect up cans and bottles and beg for handouts.
Ethiopian ancestors
Popular myth traces their arrival in Yemen to the 5th or 6th century, when the group’s Ethiopian ancestors crossed the Red Sea in a failed bid to conquer the southern corner of the Arabian peninsula.
After the arrival of Islam, so the myth goes, Muslim rulers defeated the Ethiopian army and sent them into exile.
Enslaved and relegated
The ones who stayed were enslaved and relegated to the fringes of society, where they have remained despite the replacement in 1962 of a caste-like Imamate with the egalitarian promises of a modern state. They are thought to number around one million, mostly concentrated in urban slums in Taiz and Sana’a.
The prospect of democratic reforms envisaged in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) plan which pulled Yemen from the brink of civil war in 2012 raised hopes that the situation would improve for the Akhdam people, but little has happened yet.
Læs videre http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95324/YEMEN-Akhdam-community-angered-by-government-neglect
