More than 100 "boat people", Somalis and Ethiopians, are feared to have drowned at sea in the past week while trying to reach Yemen aboard smugglers' boats, the United Nations said on Thursday. Most perished when a vessel carrying 93 passengers sank on March 3 in the Gulf of Aden after developing a technical problem, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said in a statement. Only the crew of four are thought to have survived. A further 18 Africans are believed to have drowned on March 7 after the crew of another boat ordered its 85 passengers to jump into the sea while some distance from the coast, it said. "This tragedy is the latest in a series of similar accidents that have caused an untold number of deaths in the past few years," UNHCR said. Thousands of Somalis and Ethiopians each year "fall prey to unscrupulous traffickers" in the hope of being smuggled into Yemen, from where many seek to make their way to Europe, according to the UNHCR. It said this "growing disaster" had its roots in poverty coupled with insecurity in the case of Somalia, which drive desperate people into smugglers' hands.
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Survivors from the latest incidents, as well as some 450 passengers from other smugglers' boats who also sailed from Somalia at the same time, were intercepted by Yemeni authorities. They are are receiving care at Mayfa'a reception centre near the coastal village of Bir Ali in southern Yemen. They told UNHCR staff that some 1,500 people are waiting to be smuggled into Yemen from Bossasso, in northeastern Somalia, in coming days. |