Yemen was damaged by the December 2004 tsunami more than originally estimated, a United Nations organization has found.
The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization sent a mission to Yemen in July and found that fishermen in particular suffered heavy damages.
The mission found that some 2,000 fishing families were directly affected by the tsunami, and the damage totaled about $2.2 million, the U.N.’s Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) reported this week.
The mission focused on 34 costal communities in Socotra, a cluster of islands south of Yemen.
Five Yemenites were killed in the disaster.
The tsunami’s high waves damaged boats, engines, fishing gear and infrastructure vital to the fishing industry, putting many fishermen out of work. Fishing provides employment to more than 53,000 people in Yemen.
The mission said there was little government activity to help those affected by the tsunami.
The FAO is trying to get Yemen included in the list of countries affected by the disaster so it can receive international assistance.
The mission estimated it will take at least a year for the fishing sector to be restored to previous levels of activity.
Yemen, a country of 19 million people, is located south of Saudi Arabia. Nearly half of Yemen’s population lives beneath the poverty line and one in five is undernourished, according to World Bank figures.