Bloomberg.com
By Jason McLure
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Most of those on board the vessel were rescued by fishermen and the Yemeni coast guard, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said in an e-mailed statement today in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
More than 22,500 people -- most of them Somalis -- have attempted the journey across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen this year in open boats, according to the UNHCR. At least 165 have died and another 220 are missing.
``This is a steep increase from 2007 and the numbers will continue to rise,'' Myra Sabongi, a UNHCR official in Yemen, said in the statement. ``We are not even halfway through August, but the number of arrivals is already significantly higher than for the entire month of August 2007.''
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 3.5 million people in Somalia -- half the country's population - - will require humanitarian aid by the end of 2008 because of Somalia's 18-year civil war, drought and higher world food prices.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jason McLure in Addis Ababa via Johannesburg at [email protected].
Source: Bloomberg.com, Aug 14, 2008