SANAA, 19 December 2006 — Nine Yemeni coast guards and an Eritrean soldier have drowned after a boat carrying them capsized off a Yemeni island in the Red Sea, a military official said yesterday.
The official told Arab News that the boat capsized after it was hit by high tides off Az Zuqur, an island in the Hanish archipelago on Sunday as it began sailing to the Al-Khukha town on the Yemeni mainland. Seventeen Yemeni soldiers and the Eritrean were on board.
The eight surviving Yemenis were rescued by a passing commercial ship and airlifted by helicopter to a military hospital in the southwestern Yemeni province of Taiz, the official said, asking not to be named.
The bodies of the ten dead have been recovered. “We lost contact with the boat after it left Zuqur island,” said the Yemeni official, adding that “initial expert reports show that high tides forced the boat to change course, and they might have run out of fuel.”
The nature of the trip was not yet known. Nor was it clear why an Eritrean soldier was on board.
