M & C
Saturday, April 12, 2008
The officials told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the boat was carrying 120 refuge-seekers, most of them Somalis, and that 102 of them managed to swim to the coast of Ahwar in the southern Yemen province of Abyan.
A local official in Abyan, some 450 kilometres from Sana'a, said the survivors were 82 Somalis and 20 Ethiopians. He said a Somali survivor was in critical condition and died later.
The official, who requested anonymity, said the dead included three women and 16 men, adding that a breakdown for the nationalities of the dead was not available.
He said local fishermen in the area rescued the survivors and recovered the bodies of the dead.
'Bodies of the victims are being buried by locals in the Malha area of Ahwar district,' he said.
Hundreds of Somali and Ethiopian migrants perish every year making the dangerous crossing of the Gulf of Aden to Yemen on small boats run by smugglers operating from Somali ports.
Some 2,850 migrants, including more than 750 women and children, arrived in Yemeni coastal areas on the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea in March, and at least 60 people died while trying to cross from Somalia to Yemen, according to Yemeni authorities.
United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said last month that a total 8,713 people had arrived in Yemen in January and February, a massive increase compared to the same period of 2007.
The UN said at least 113 people died making the perilous voyage during the same period, and 214 others were still missing, most of whom were presumed to have drowned.
In the first two months of 2007, 2,946 people made the boat journey across the Gulf of Aden, with a total of 139 people dead and 19 never accounted for during that period.
The increase in arrivals this year is partly due to the use of new smuggling routes.
By the end of 2007, the smugglers had started taking migrants, mostly Somalis, across the Red Sea from Djibouti, the UN agency said.
UNHCR has said that about 700 Somalis had taken the Djibouti route last year.
Smugglers, fearing capture by Yemeni coastguards, often brutally force passengers to jump off at gunpoint as they near the end of their three-day trip across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia to Yemen.
Last year, more than 113,000 people, mostly Somalis, made the perilous voyage to Yemen, with over 1,400 deaths.
Since the outbreak of civil war in Somalia, Yemen has become a magnet for refugees fleeing violence and drought and a gateway to the oil-rich countries of the Arabian peninsula and Europe.
Source: M & C, April 12, 2008