Dozens of migrants missing, feared drowned

Dozens of migrants missing, feared drowned

U.N. agency says smugglers forced 100 to jump into Gulf of Aden waters

updated 6:21 a.m. PT, Fri., Oct. 10, 2008
SAN'A, Yemen - About 100 people are missing and feared drowned off the shores of Yemen after their smugglers forced them overboard in the treacherous Gulf of Aden waters, Yemeni officials and the UN refugee agency said on Friday.

In Geneva, the U.N. refugee agency spokesman Ron Redmond told reporters that the smugglers' boat had left Somalia on Monday with 150 people on board.

Later, as the vessel neared the coast of Yemen, the smugglers forced the migrants overboard, Redmond said. Only 47 survivors managed to swim three miles to the shore and alert authorities.

Such tragic incidents are common in the area, as migrants from the Horn of Africa — particularly from Somalia, where ongoing violence has killed thousands of civilians — regularly face abuse at the hands of smugglers.

"This is one of the most dramatic situations in the world," UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, said at a press conference in Geneva. "Rescue at sea is also one of the areas in which the world has to invest massively to be able to be more and more effective."

He warned that according to UNHCR figures, the number of crossings is doubling in the present season.

Thrown overboard
Some of the migrants are attacked during the journey and thrown overboard into shark-infested waters. Also, smugglers often force passengers to disembark offshore to avoid Yemeni coast guard patrols.

"The way smugglers and traffickers treat people is absolutely outrageous and corresponds to one of the worst crimes that we can see in today's world," Guterres said. "This is an area where I believe the international community needs to invest a lot in the management of borders, but the management of borders with a protection-sensitive approach."

"Invest a lot in the root causes of displacement. These people do not move for pleasure. They move because they are compelled because of conflict...or by extreme poverty," appealed Guterres.

He urged the international community to look "not only for pirates but also to look for these (human trafficking) situations in the Gulf of Aden."

He said that since the start of the year, about 32,000 people have arrived in Yemen on boats, many of them fleeing violence and hardship in Somalia and other Horn of Africa countries.

Thousands of immigrants
UNHCR estimates at least 230 people have died and 365 remain missing, including 100 from the latest incident.

In the Yemeni capital of San'a, the Interior Ministry said in a statement that the total number of migrants who arrived in Yemen from Somalia has reached 22,532 since the beginning of the year.

During the first half of September, some 165 of the bodies that floated ashore have been buried in Yemeni soil, while hundreds are missing and feared dead, the ministry said.

A local security official said the boat from Somalia was bound for the Shabwa province. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media, said he believed that between 100 and 118 migrants could have drowned.

Shabwa province lies in the south of Yemen, some 300 miles south of San'a.

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Migrants tossed overboard near Yemen; 47 live

ASSOCIATED PRESS

October 11, 2008

SAN'A, Yemen – Dozens of bodies washed ashore yesterday in Yemen after smugglers threw nearly 150 Somali migrants overboard in shark-infested waters, the latest such tragedy in one of the most lawless stretches of ocean in the world.

The Gulf of Aden between Yemen and the Horn of Africa is notorious for Somali piracy. The hijacking of a freighter carrying a cargo of heavy weapons two weeks ago heightened concern over the chaos in a key shipping route – and prompted NATO on Thursday to send warships to help U.S. Navy vessels already patrolling the region.

About 150 migrants departed Somalia on Monday, and when their vessel was about three miles off Yemen's Shabwa coast, the smugglers ordered everyone off, Ron Redmond, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said in Geneva. Most of the migrants had to swim.

Redmond said 47 people were believed to have survived, but the rest were feared drowned. As of yesterday, 30 bodies had been found washed up on shore, officials said.