Yemen victim's brother: 'protect us or deport us'

The Jewish minority in Yemen has demanded the government 'protect them or deport them' from the country after a religious extremist killed one of them last Thursday, the Yemen Observer reports. The murder is the latest of a catalogue of abuses and assaults. The article also reveals that two of the victim's sisters were injured, one seriously, in a car accident on their way to attend the funeral.

"As long as the State is unable to protect us and secure us in our homeland, then, you buy our houses and properties and pay us the money and deport us from the country," said the rabbi, Yahya bin Yaish, brother of Mousa Yaish who was killed.

The rabbi has revealed abuses and assaults over the past few months against the Jewish community which forms less than 500 people among the 22 million Yemeni population.

"Over the past months we have been suffering from repeated assaults and threats; we have been reporting to the official concerned bodies and tribal chiefs but without success," he said.
He accused "some local people headed by bodyguards of some influential officials" of committing such repeated "assaults, abuses, harassments" against the Jews in Raida and Kharef in Amran province, where about 400 people of the Jewish community lives.

The Ministry of Interior said Saturday it had arrested eight of these people accused of abusing the Jews.

"The assaults and threats have gone as far as the murder of my brother who was cold bloodedly killed in the market before the eyes and ears of all," The rabbi said.

"They search us when we come and go, they search our visitors, and investigate our guests, they sometimes attack out houses, beat us, and threaten our women with guns, and nobody rescues us from them, it seems that everybody is helpless to protect us from those assailants, or maybe it is organized assaults," he added.

The former pilot, Abdul Azeez Hamoud Al Abdi, in his 40s, confessed to killing the Jew Mousa Yaish, without showing any kind of repentance over committing the crime, according to sources familiar to the investigations.

The sources said the perpetrator said he did that to "get closer to Allah" , and that he warned the Jews in writing one month ago. In his alleged letter he said to the Jews: You either convert to Islam, or leave the country, or face the sword. (..)

Relatives of the victim from Israel, US, and Britain, have arrived in Yemen to participate in the funeral which will be held this week. Two of his sisters were injured, one of them seriously, in a car accident in their way from Raida to Amran on Friday after they arrived from Israel.

"Now, they (are) in a hospital in Sana'a, and the funeral may be delayed until his sisters are recovered," said one of the relatives who accompanied the two sisters to the hospital in Sana'a.

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