At least 82 migrants drown off Yemen

(Yemen, January 21, 2008 Ceegaag Online)  

At least 82 African would-be migrants, mostly Somalis, have drowned off Yemen after their wooden boat capsized in choppy waters as it neared the end of its voyage from Somalia, Yemeni officials said.

The incident occurred a few kilometres off the town of Ahwar in the southern Yemeni province of Abyan on the Gulf of Aden late on Friday, the officials said.

They said local fishermen rescued 30 passengers and recovered bodies of 22 others after the boat ran into rocks and capsized.

Survivors told authorities there had been about 140 people aboard the boat.

"Around 60 bodies washed up on shores of Ahwar today (Sunday) and up to 28 people are still missing," a local official in Ahwar told Deutsche Presse-Agentur in Sana'a by phone.

Hundreds of Somali and Ethiopian migrants die every year making the dangerous crossing of the Gulf of Aden to Yemen on small boats run by smugglers operating from Somali ports.

Last year, more than 113,000 people, most of them Somalis, made the perilous voyage to Yemen, with over 1,400 deaths, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

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 to Europe.

Yemen is the only Arabian Peninsula country that is a signatory of the 1951 Geneva Convention and 1967 protocol on the status of refugees.

Source:  SMH

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