Saturday, April 14, 2007
San'a - At least 62 Somali migrants, including nine women, are feared to have perished after a smugglers' boat ferrying them capsized off Yemen's coast, Yemeni officials and local media said on Saturday.
About 32 other Somali migrants from the same boat were rescued, a security official in the coastal Abyan province said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
The official also said that a total of 96 Somalis are believed to have been aboard the smugglers' boat. It was not immediately clear when the boat capsized.
The local Al Ayman newspaper reported, quoting unnamed eyewitnesses from the area, that 16 bodies from the incident have washed ashore since Friday night and that more could be seen floating in the sea from the coastal highway.
Another local official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the survivors were taken to the Kharaz refugee camp in the city of Aden, 320 kilometres south of the capital Sana'a.
The official said survivors told Yemeni authorities that the human traffickers forced them into the sea when they sighted the Yemeni coast guard.
The incident is the latest case of abuse of people trying to reach Yemen from the Horn of Africa, where violence has escalated since Ethiopia intervened in the armed struggle between Somalia's UN-supported interim government and Islamic groups.
'Many migrants drown or are slain by pirates'
A week ago, Yemen said that about 5 000 illegal migrants from Ethiopia and Somalia arrived here since January and that 395 died while trying to cross by boat in the same period.
Many migrants drown or are slain by pirates and smugglers in the treacherous waters between Yemen and Somalia, authorities have said.
Others face smugglers' brutal attacks during the journey and being thrown overboard into shark-infested waters of the Gulf of Aden as pirates scramble to evade Yemeni coast guard forces.
Out of the total of 88 000 registered refugees in Yemen, about 84 000 are Somalis.
Source: AP, April 14, 2007