SANAA: At least 35 African migrants drowned and 13 were missing after a rickety boat carrying 110 people capsized off Yemen's southeastern coast yesterday, police said.
Police officials told Arab News that 35 bodies, including nine women, washed up on the shore of Rada, some 260 km east of the southern port city of Aden.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said 62 managed to swim to shore, and were taken to a medical center run by Doctors Without Borders, in nearby Ahwar.
They said the accident took place early in the day as the overcrowded boat capsized in strong winds as it approached the shore after a three-day trip across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia.
They said the passengers were Somalis and Ethiopians but were not able to provide a breakdown.
The local NGO, Society of Human Solidarity, said its field teams buried the bodies in a graveyard in Ahwar.
Another boat carrying 100 migrants arrived in the same area and its passengers disembarked safely, the officials said.
Many African migrants, mostly from conflict-torn Somalia, try to reach Yemen, which is seen as a gateway to Europe and the rich countries of the Arabian Peninsula.
Hundreds of people perish every year in the perilous exodus that takes thousands of desperate Somalis and Ethiopians to Yemen in small boats run by human traffickers operating from Somali ports.
Since the beginning of this year, 387 boats and 19,622 people have arrived in Yemen from the Horn of Africa via this dangerous sea route. Some 74 died while another 51 have gone missing during those trips. Last year, 50,000 people were smuggled into Yemen by sea and 949 died making the trip.
