CAIRO — At least 49 people have died and 140 are missing after a boat carrying migrants sank off the coast of Yemen, the United Nations International Organization for Migration said Tuesday.
The boat sank off Yemen’s southern coast on Monday after travelling 200 miles across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia’s northern coast with about 260 Somalis and Ethiopians on board, the UN agency said in a statement.
The statement said the search and rescue work was still ongoing and 71 people had been rescued so far. The statement said 31 women and 6 children were among the dead.
Yemen is a major route for migrants from East Africa and the Horn of Africa heading to the Gulf countries for work. Yemen’s civil war has lasted nearly a decadeThe International Organization for Migration said last month that the number of migrants arriving annually tripled from 2021 to 2023, soaring from about 27,000 to more than 90,000.
To reach Yemen, migrants are transported by smugglers in often dangerous, overcrowded boats through the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden. In April, at least 62 people died in two boatwrecks off the coast of Djibouti while trying to reach Yemen. The United Nations agency says at least 1,860 people have died or are missing along the way, including 480 who drowned.
The agency’s spokesman, Mohammed Ali Abu Najra, said Monday’s sinking was “yet another reminder of the urgent need to work together to address pressing migration challenges and ensure the safety of migrants along migration routes”.
