At least 68 African migrants killed after boat capsizes off Yemen coast, U.N. says : NPR
This is a map of locally for Yemen with its capital, Sanaa.
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CAIRO (AP) – A boat capsized Sunday in the waters off the Côtes du Yemen, killing 68 African dead and 74 other disappeared, said the United Nations Migration Agency.
The tragedy was the last in a series of shipwrecks off Yemen who killed hundreds of African migrants fleeing conflicts and poverty in the hope of reaching the rich Arab Gulf countries.
The ship, with 154 Ethiopian migrants on board, flowed into the Gulf of Aden off the South-Yemeni province of Abyan on Sunday, Abdusattor Esoev, head of the International Organization for Migration in Yemen, told the Associated Press.
He said that the bodies of 54 migrants were washed in the Khanfar district, and 14 others were found dead and taken to a morgue at the hospital in Zinjibar, the provincial capital of Abyan on the southern coast of Yemen.
Only 12 migrants survived the sinking, and the others were missing and presumed dead, said Esoev.
In a press release, the Abyan security department described a massive research and rescue operation given the large number of dead and missing migrants. He said many corpses had been found dispersed in a large area of the shore.
Despite more than a decade of civil war, Yemen is a major path for East African migrants and the Horn of Africa trying to reach the Arab Gulf countries to work. Migrants are taken by smugglers on often dangerous and overcrowded boats across the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden.
Hundreds of migrants have died or disappeared in the shipwreck in Yemen in recent months, especially in March, when two migrants died and 186 other people disappeared after four boats capsized Yemen and Djibouti, according to the OIM.
More than 60,000 migrants arrived in Yemen in 2024, against 97,200 in 2023, probably due to a larger water patrol, according to an IOM report in March.
