Thank you.
Over the past six months, or eight months or so, we have been hearing from the Yemeni community. The Yemeni community is new to our centre. We haven't seen as many clients as the Yemeni community come in. This is an example. They are convention refugees. They've become convention refugees, and it is typically the males who are here. They have family members behind in Yemen, and they put in the applications to have them brought over with them. These are not the general sponsorship forms, but family reunification.
The issue that is happening in Yemen at the moment is that this particular family, or several of them that we have begun to see, cannot leave their little area where they're living because of bombardment. They cannot find a Canadian-designated medical doctor within that area so they can go through the medical check. They cannot go to a police station so they can have their security certificates issued or have their fingerprints taken.
We hear stories, and we see pictures when the clients come into our office showing us that the building right next door to their family has been bombed and they can't leave that area. That is what we're hearing from the Yemeni community and seeing now almost on a daily basis. We have heard recently that IRCC has designated a medical doctor for the clients to go to get their medical checks done, but this particular doctor as well lives far away from most of our clients' homes, and they can't leave one area to go to that doctor.
We have been working closely as well with the Canadian Council for Refugees in addressing this particular issue. This is the Yemeni community, but in general security certificates take a very long time. We appreciate that. We understand that they need to happen, but by the time the security certificate is done, the medical has become obsolete. The clients need to go back and redo the medical, pay again to have these medical tests done—and medicals are very expensive back home in the Middle East.