Hundred Migrants Missing After Being Thrown Overboard Near Yemen

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 19:45:55 +0000
AHN Staff

Geneva, Switzerland (AHN) - One hundred out of 150 Somali migrants remain missing Friday after human smugglers supposed to bring them to Yemen by boat forced them to swim to the country's shore.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Yemeni coast guard are searching for survivors off Yemen's coast. Forty-seven managed to reach shore by swimming five kilometers of water.

Yemeni authorities have buried five bodies, according to UNCHR. Thirty bodies have washed up on the shore of Yemen's Shabwa province but authorities are verifying if these belonged to the victims.

The boat people left Somalia's Marera port on Monday. They have been sailing the Gulf of Aden for three days when smugglers stopped the boat and ordered them to swim to their destination.

Thousands of people escaping civil war and hunger from countries in the Horn of Africa are making the perilous sea journey to Yemen. Last month, 52 Somalis drowned when they were also forced to swim to shore.

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