At least 54 migrants died when a boat carrying around 150 people sank from the Yemen coast on Sunday Sunday, dozens still worn, health officials said.
The boat capsized the Ahwar district in the province of southern Yemen in the Oman Sea, security sources said.
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Abdul Qadir Bajameel, a provincial health official, said 10 of the 150 people on board had been saved – nine Ethiopians and a Yemeni – but dozens were missing. Two doctors said the rescuers still sought survivors.
The International Organization for Migration says that Yemen continues to attend a significant increase in the influx of irregular migrants arriving from Africa.
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The migrants cross the Strait of Bab Al-Mandab which separates Djibouti each year and the Eritrea of Yemen on fragile boats in the hope of reaching Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries in the hope of finding work.
The OIM describes the route of the Horn of Africa to Yemen as “one of the most frequent and perilous mixed migration paths in the world”. He said he recorded the arrival of more than 60,000 migrants in Yemen last year.
