Cairo
AP
–
The boat capsized on Sunday in water off Yemen’s coast, killing 68 African migrants and 74 are missing, the UN immigrants said.
The tragedy was the latest in a series of shipwrecks that killed hundreds of African migrants who fled hundreds of African migrants in the hopes of reaching wealthy Gulf Arab countries.
The vessel carrying 154 Ethiopian migrants was sank in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of southern Yemen province of Abdusaita Esoev, head of the International Migration Agency for Yemeni immigrants.
He said the bodies of 54 migrants were washed on land in the Khanfah area, and 14 others were found dead and taken to the morgue at a hospital in Zinjibal, the capital of Avian province on Yemen’s south coast.
Esoev said that only 12 migrants survived the wreck, while the rest were estimated to have disappeared and died.
In a statement, Avian’s security department described a massive search and rescue operation, taking into account the numerous deaths and missing immigrants. He said many bodies were found scattered across a wide area of the coast.
Despite more than a decade of civil war, Yemen is the main route that the East African immigrants and the Horn of Africa are trying to reach the Gulf Arab countries for work. Immigrants are often taken to smugglers in dangerous, overcrowded boats across the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden.
Hundreds of migrants have been killed or gone missing on shipwrecks in Yemen, including in March when two migrants died in March and 186 people went missing after 186 boats capsized Yemen and Djibouti, according to the IOM.
More than 60,000 migrants have arrived in Yemen, probably from 97,200 in 2023 to 97,200 in 2023.
