هذا التقرير متاح أيضًا بـ العربية
On the third day of Ramadan 2026, Osama al-Sabaei packed his travel bag and left his home in the Al-Misrakh district of Yemen’s Taiz governorate, carrying a simple hope: to find a job opportunity that would help improve his living conditions and support his family in a country exhausted by war and economic crises.
His father, Abdul Basit al-Sabaei, was not convinced by the decision. He repeatedly tried to persuade his son not to travel, warning him about the ambiguity surrounding some job offers targeting young people seeking opportunities abroad. But Osama, like many of his generation, saw the trip as a chance that might not come again.
At first, the family followed his news intermittently, before communication gradually began to fade. On April 8, the family received a video recording that was among the last things they learned about the group Osama had traveled with.
In the recording, a number of young Yemeni men appeared speaking about the gap between the promises they had received before traveling and the reality they later found themselves in, warning young people against being drawn in by job offers with unclear details and stressing that their experience was different from what had initially been presented to them.
His father told Noon Post: “After that, there was no more contact. We kept waiting for any news that would reassure us about him, but there was nothing.”
After weeks of waiting, the father received a call informing him that his son had died on April 10, 2026 — nearly two months before the news reached his family on June 12, 2026.
He added: “We were waiting for any message or call from him, and we had no idea he had been gone for a long time.”
Despite being informed of his death, Osama’s body remains in Russia to this day, and his family has been unable to recover it or bury him.
The family says it is still facing difficulties in determining the procedures and the authority that could handle returning the body to Yemen, amid legal and administrative complications tied to the case.
The search for work turned into a personal tragedy for this young man and his family, but Osama’s story is only one of many that reveal how deteriorating economic conditions have pushed some Yemenis to accept overseas job offers that ended up placing some of them in environments linked to armed conflicts or in circumstances different from what they had been promised.
Not an isolated case
In recent years, a growing number of Yemenis have recounted traveling after receiving job offers and promises of high salaries, only for some to discover that the nature of the work or the environment they were taken to was different from what they had been led to expect. Hundreds of Yemenis found themselves wearing Russian or Ukrainian military uniforms and fighting as mercenaries on distant front lines that were not their own.
Rights advocates and researchers say this phenomenon cannot be separated from Yemen’s economic and social reality, where the continuation of war, declining economic activity and scarce job opportunities have increased young people’s willingness to take risks in pursuit of any chance to improve their living conditions.
Tawfiq al-Humaidi, head of the SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties, told Noon Post that the cases documented by the organization show a direct link between deteriorating economic conditions and rising rates of recruitment. He noted that poverty, unemployment and the collapse of basic sources of income including salaries and the shrinking labor market have driven many job seekers to accept misleading or unclear employment offers that may involve grave risks and serious human rights violations.
This phenomenon also cannot be separated from the broader humanitarian context in Yemen. According to the UN’s 2025 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan, about 19.5 million people need humanitarian assistance and protection services, an increase of 1.3 million people compared with the previous year an indication of the continued deterioration of living and economic conditions in the country.
Poverty drives risk-taking
Journalist and economic researcher Wafiq Saleh told Noon Post that Yemen’s economic crisis is one of the most important factors pushing young people to seek work opportunities abroad, regardless of the level of risk involved.
He said the war has caused a near-total collapse of the economic system and weakened financial institutions, while the division in monetary policy has led to a decline in the value of the local currency and a drop in families’ purchasing power.
He added that the local market has lost much of its capacity to absorb labor, leading many young people to view overseas job offers as a path to economic survival more than a risky adventure.
Saleh pointed to three main factors behind young people’s willingness to take risks: high inflation, the widening gap between incomes and living costs, and the sharp collapse in purchasing power.
Humanitarian indicators support this picture. The World Food Program says about 17.1 million people in Yemen suffer from food insecurity, while millions of families face growing difficulties in meeting their basic needs amid continued economic decline and rising living costs.
Under these conditions, securing a source of income becomes a priority that outweighs many other considerations, including the potential risks associated with travel or the nature of the work.
Promises of work and unknown paths
According to rights testimonies, recruitment operations often rely on exploiting individuals’ economic need and presenting offers that appear attractive compared with living conditions in Yemen.
Al-Humaidi noted that the most prominent patterns of targeting include promises of high and unrealistic salaries, vague or incomplete employment contracts, as well as the use of social media platforms and unlicensed employment brokers to reach those wishing to travel.
He also pointed to signs of organized activity reflected in the similarity of victims’ accounts, the repetition of recruitment methods, the presence of brokerage networks operating in more than one area, and the coordination of transport and movement among several parties.
In many cases, the information available to those wishing to travel is limited or incomplete, leaving them unable to assess the potential risks or fully understand the nature of the environment they are heading into.
But some families managed to uncover the truth about these offers before travel procedures were completed. The family of young Yemeni man Awwab al-Khatib, who was working in Oman, succeeded in persuading him not to travel after he received an offer that included promises of salary and major benefits in exchange for moving to Russia.
His father, Amin al-Khatib, told Noon Post that his son was told he could obtain Russian citizenship, housing and social benefits, in addition to large sums of money immediately upon arrival.
He added: “They were all major temptations for young people, but we discovered that these promises were merely bait to lure them in.”
According to his account, only two days remained before his son’s scheduled departure when he learned the full details of the offer, allowing the family to intervene and persuade him to cancel the trip.
He said: “We managed to stop him in time, but many young people do not discover the truth until it is too late.”
This testimony reflects another side of the phenomenon: While some journeys ended in humanitarian tragedies or a total loss of contact with those who took them, others were able to turn back at the last moment after discovering the gap between the promises they had received and the reality they were about to face.
Efforts to confront the phenomenon
Ali al-Sabahi, founder of the Global Union of Yemeni Migrants, told Noon Post that the union began moving after receiving distress calls from Yemenis who discovered after traveling that they had been taken to environments different from those they had been promised.
He explained that the union formed an emergency room to follow up on cases, communicate with the relevant authorities and work to return those stranded, while also launching awareness campaigns aimed at warning Yemenis about the dangers of misleading job offers.
He noted that the union worked to bring the issue to international and regional media outlets, and also contacted official Yemeni and international bodies to curb recruitment channels and follow up on the conditions of affected Yemenis.
According to al-Sabahi, it also helped monitor the conditions of Yemenis detained or taken prisoner in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war, reassure their families and communicate with the relevant authorities to demand that their situations be addressed.
From a legal standpoint, lawyer Ali al-Sarrari believes that luring people through misleading job promises and then transferring them to environments linked to armed conflicts may, under certain circumstances, fall within the scope of human trafficking crimes, especially when individuals’ economic need is exploited or the true nature of the work is concealed from them.
Al-Sarrari told Noon Post that legal responsibility is not limited to the party that directly carries out the recruitment operation, but may also extend to intermediaries, individuals and companies involved in advertising, coordination, financing or facilitating travel if it is proven that they knew the nature of the activity or their role in it.
He added that these cases often have a cross-border character, opening the door to international judicial cooperation to track the networks involved, gather evidence and prosecute those responsible.
He stressed that victims and their families have the right to seek legal accountability and compensation for the harm they suffered, and that they must be provided with legal protection and the support they need.
Why do young people believe these promises?
For many young Yemenis, overseas job offers do not appear to be merely a career opportunity, but rather an escape from a suffocating economic reality. In a country where millions need humanitarian assistance and millions more suffer from food insecurity, promises of high salaries or better living benefits abroad become more appealing, even when their details are vague or incomplete.
International data indicate that economic motivation remains the primary driver of migration and travel decisions among those seeking better opportunities, which helps explain why some young people are willing to accept high levels of risk in the hope of improving their living conditions.
The story of Osama al-Sabaei, and others like it, reveals a complex intersection of economic crisis, migration, labor and potential exploitation. In a country suffering from shrinking job opportunities and widening poverty, overseas job promises become more tempting, even when they lack sufficient guarantees.
At the same time, these conditions create a favorable environment for the emergence of networks and brokers who profit from young people’s need and their desire to improve their living conditions.
For Abdul Basit al-Sabaei, his son’s journey ended before he even knew it had ended. For thousands of other Yemeni families, meanwhile, the fear remains that the search for a job opportunity could turn into a road leading into the unknown.
As economic pressures continue and the available alternatives dwindle, the question remains: How many young people will keep chasing the dream of escaping poverty without knowing for certain where the journey will lead them?