SOMALIA
In dead of night, the Arabian Sea offering up its secrets on the long empty beaches of Yemen's south coast.
This is not about the survival of the fittest; washing up here after the treacherous crossing is like winning life's lottery.
A fresh start, having fled destitution, anarchy and now, looming regional war.
In places, bodies litter the dunes. Some, still alive.
UPSOT
Mohyaddin Ali Omar says he hasn't eaten or slept in three days; dumped in neck-deep water; staggering up through the surf, up the beach, he collapsed here.
UPSOT
I felt dizzy, he says.
The mortal dangers of the perilous 200-mile crossing outweighed by hope of escape from Somalia's chaos and violence.
UPSOT
The traffickers wield clubs and guns and are notorious for their brutality. Omar Hassan says they inflicted the gash on his face.
UPSOT
We were forced to crouch for three days, Aweis Osman says, packed in like animals, denied water, beaten if we moved.
Record numbers of bewildered refugees fleeing north across the Gulf of Aden now. Record numbers dying too.
The United Nations warned months ago more would die unless the world acted; yet, having alerted the world to the crisis, the UN refugee agency is nowhere in sight on this beach.
One of the few vehicles patrolling the stretch where most boats come in: a military pick-up; crammed full of refugees and, strangely, heading in the opposite direction to the UN refugee processing centre, towards an army camp. The UN has voiced serious concern to the Yemeni government over persistent reports of refugees being robbed by the police and the military.
DAWN
Since the wind dropped last month and this year's smuggling season kicked off, they've been arriving at the rate of nearly a thousand a week.
Fifty dollars no guarantee of safe passage though; hundreds thrown overboard to lighten the load in rough seas.
Driftwood, rings of stones marking the graves of the unlucky.
At our crew's request, a UN field worker's come down to the beach from the refugee processing centre an hour's drive inland, to the carcass of a smugglers' boat caught by coastguards.
SYNC
Aouad-Djaffer Baobeid
UNHCR
"Boats are overloaded, suffocation, asphyxia. During the past month, more than thirty dead; majority thrown overboard."
Local fishermen say bloated corpses get tangled in their nets; some have gunshot wounds, others have their hands tied.
UPSOT
Mohammed Ali says he's found around 40 floating at sea. We haul them out, he says, and bury them here and in other makeshift graveyards up and down the beach.
CAMELS
Up in the dunes, groups of stragglers. These men have been wandering around helplessly for two days, it turns out, trying in vain to find a UN collection point.
They're exhausted and have already been fleeced and racially abused; some now wishing they hadn't even come.
SYNC
OLD MAN
"In God's name, I tell you, it kills you. You regret ever making this journey. I'm an old man. I get rheumatism; it was agony."
Small clusters of refugees wander down a road running parallel to the beach; none has any idea where they're heading -- or what they're heading into.
COLLECTION POINT
This is an ad hoc "refugee pick-up point." There are no UN vehicles to ferry new arrivals to the processing centre. Any vehicle the UNHCR's one local fixer can commandeer is pressed into service.
The UN says this is a lawless region, too dangerous for UN staff to operate openly.
CAMP
Of the 85,000 registered Somali refugees in Yemen, only 9,000 live in Kharaz, the sole refugee camp. The Yemeni government told us there may be an additional 200,000 unregistered Somalis, but the UN disputes this. All who register though are granted refugee status. But most choose not to live in the camp.
Talking to fresh arrivals, it's not hard to work out why so many Somalis are leaving. Their country's prolonged state of collapse unmatched in modern times; 15 years with no government. The Islamists who've swept through in recent months, reminiscent of the Taliban.
SYNC
Abdul Fatah Weheliye
Cinema owner
"They had guns and whips and they attacked us, while we were watching a film. They shot the screen, they smashed our cassettes and they beat the audience and
broke their legs."
SYNC
Hawa Osman Ibrahim
"The Islamists impose a curfew after 7pm; if you're caught out after that time, you'll be beaten; men and women can no longer walk together in the streets."
SYNC
Abdi Mohammed Ali
"I don't want to talk about Islamists or warlords, I'm too hungry here and I wish had hadn't bothered coming."
There's supposed to be enough food here for everyone, supplied by the UN. But refugees complain of inadequate rations, alleging corruption by camp administrators.
SYNC
Nadifo Ali Mohammed
"Monthly rations aren't enough for a week. We left Somalia because because life was so bad but it's no better here in this camp. I'm treated like a dog."
This single mother of two, whose husband and first child were killed in Somalia, says she's unable to survive on UN handouts.
SYNC
"Fatimah"
"Police and camp officials misappropriate what we're meant to have. I am forced to beg and work as a prostitute because conditions are so harsh. There are a lot of women in the camp selling sex -- even married women."
We've been unable to independently verify these accounts and the UNHCR in Yemen was unable to answer our questions.
SANA'A
The UN praises Yemen's generosity in accepting Somali refugees, but a huge inundation would swamp this country, one of the very poorest in the world. Per capita income just over a dollar a day; 40 per cent unemployment. Somalis trying to make ends meet in the capital, Sana'a, encounter resentment.
UPSOT
Mohammed says it's a rough life and he doesn't get help from the UN or anyone. Instead of dying of hunger out on the streets, he says, we wash cars and can afford to buy just about enough food to survive. Yemenis don't like us here though. They think we're loaded, he says.
It's a measure of just how desperate Somalis now are to leave their benighted homeland that they continue to arrive in Yemen in such numbers -- they're warned
of the risks before they leave. Life as a refugee is to live the Somalian dream. And the reality is no one has any idea how to stem the exodus because there is no game plan for how to deal with Somalia, teetering on the brink of another civil war after fifteen years of failed statehood.
In dead of night, the Arabian Sea offering up its secrets on the long empty beaches of Yemen's south coast.
This is not about the survival of the fittest; washing up here after the treacherous crossing is like winning life's lottery.
A fresh start, having fled destitution, anarchy and now, looming regional war.
In places, bodies litter the dunes. Some, still alive.
UPSOT
Mohyaddin Ali Omar says he hasn't eaten or slept in three days; dumped in neck-deep water; staggering up through the surf, up the beach, he collapsed here.
UPSOT
I felt dizzy, he says.
The mortal dangers of the perilous 200-mile crossing outweighed by hope of escape from Somalia's chaos and violence.
UPSOT
The traffickers wield clubs and guns and are notorious for their brutality. Omar Hassan says they inflicted the gash on his face.
UPSOT
We were forced to crouch for three days, Aweis Osman says, packed in like animals, denied water, beaten if we moved.
Record numbers of bewildered refugees fleeing north across the Gulf of Aden now. Record numbers dying too.
The United Nations warned months ago more would die unless the world acted; yet, having alerted the world to the crisis, the UN refugee agency is nowhere in sight on this beach.
One of the few vehicles patrolling the stretch where most boats come in: a military pick-up; crammed full of refugees and, strangely, heading in the opposite direction to the UN refugee processing centre, towards an army camp. The UN has voiced serious concern to the Yemeni government over persistent reports of refugees being robbed by the police and the military.
DAWN
Since the wind dropped last month and this year's smuggling season kicked off, they've been arriving at the rate of nearly a thousand a week.
Fifty dollars no guarantee of safe passage though; hundreds thrown overboard to lighten the load in rough seas.
Driftwood, rings of stones marking the graves of the unlucky.
At our crew's request, a UN field worker's come down to the beach from the refugee processing centre an hour's drive inland, to the carcass of a smugglers' boat caught by coastguards.
SYNC
Aouad-Djaffer Baobeid
UNHCR
"Boats are overloaded, suffocation, asphyxia. During the past month, more than thirty dead; majority thrown overboard."
Local fishermen say bloated corpses get tangled in their nets; some have gunshot wounds, others have their hands tied.
UPSOT
Mohammed Ali says he's found around 40 floating at sea. We haul them out, he says, and bury them here and in other makeshift graveyards up and down the beach.
CAMELS
Up in the dunes, groups of stragglers. These men have been wandering around helplessly for two days, it turns out, trying in vain to find a UN collection point.
They're exhausted and have already been fleeced and racially abused; some now wishing they hadn't even come.
SYNC
OLD MAN
"In God's name, I tell you, it kills you. You regret ever making this journey. I'm an old man. I get rheumatism; it was agony."
Small clusters of refugees wander down a road running parallel to the beach; none has any idea where they're heading -- or what they're heading into.
COLLECTION POINT
This is an ad hoc "refugee pick-up point." There are no UN vehicles to ferry new arrivals to the processing centre. Any vehicle the UNHCR's one local fixer can commandeer is pressed into service.
The UN says this is a lawless region, too dangerous for UN staff to operate openly.
CAMP
Of the 85,000 registered Somali refugees in Yemen, only 9,000 live in Kharaz, the sole refugee camp. The Yemeni government told us there may be an additional 200,000 unregistered Somalis, but the UN disputes this. All who register though are granted refugee status. But most choose not to live in the camp.
Talking to fresh arrivals, it's not hard to work out why so many Somalis are leaving. Their country's prolonged state of collapse unmatched in modern times; 15 years with no government. The Islamists who've swept through in recent months, reminiscent of the Taliban.
SYNC
Abdul Fatah Weheliye
Cinema owner
"They had guns and whips and they attacked us, while we were watching a film. They shot the screen, they smashed our cassettes and they beat the audience and
broke their legs."
SYNC
Hawa Osman Ibrahim
"The Islamists impose a curfew after 7pm; if you're caught out after that time, you'll be beaten; men and women can no longer walk together in the streets."
SYNC
Abdi Mohammed Ali
"I don't want to talk about Islamists or warlords, I'm too hungry here and I wish had hadn't bothered coming."
There's supposed to be enough food here for everyone, supplied by the UN. But refugees complain of inadequate rations, alleging corruption by camp administrators.
SYNC
Nadifo Ali Mohammed
"Monthly rations aren't enough for a week. We left Somalia because because life was so bad but it's no better here in this camp. I'm treated like a dog."
This single mother of two, whose husband and first child were killed in Somalia, says she's unable to survive on UN handouts.
SYNC
"Fatimah"
"Police and camp officials misappropriate what we're meant to have. I am forced to beg and work as a prostitute because conditions are so harsh. There are a lot of women in the camp selling sex -- even married women."
We've been unable to independently verify these accounts and the UNHCR in Yemen was unable to answer our questions.
SANA'A
The UN praises Yemen's generosity in accepting Somali refugees, but a huge inundation would swamp this country, one of the very poorest in the world. Per capita income just over a dollar a day; 40 per cent unemployment. Somalis trying to make ends meet in the capital, Sana'a, encounter resentment.
UPSOT
Mohammed says it's a rough life and he doesn't get help from the UN or anyone. Instead of dying of hunger out on the streets, he says, we wash cars and can afford to buy just about enough food to survive. Yemenis don't like us here though. They think we're loaded, he says.
It's a measure of just how desperate Somalis now are to leave their benighted homeland that they continue to arrive in Yemen in such numbers -- they're warned
of the risks before they leave. Life as a refugee is to live the Somalian dream. And the reality is no one has any idea how to stem the exodus because there is no game plan for how to deal with Somalia, teetering on the brink of another civil war after fifteen years of failed statehood.