At least 54 migrants died today when a boat carrying about 150 people sank off the coast of Yemen in bad weather, and dozens were still missing, health officials said, Reuters reported, quoted by dariknews.bg.
The boat capsized near the Ahwar area in the southern province of Abyan on the Arabian Sea, security sources said.
Abdul Qadir Bayamiel, a health official for the province, said that 10 of the about 150 people on board had been rescued - nine Ethiopians and one Yemeni national - but dozens remained missing. Two medics said rescuers were still searching for survivors.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Yemen continued to see a significant increase in the influx of irregular migrants arriving from Africa. Migrants cross the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which separates Djibouti and Eritrea from Yemen, every year in flimsy boats in the hope of reaching Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries and finding work.
The IOM described the route from the Horn of Africa to Yemen as "one of the busiest and most dangerous mixed migration routes in the world". The organization said it had recorded the arrival of more than 60,000 migrants in Yemen last year.