Yemen Post

UN officials confirmed on Friday that a reported 60 African migrants died in a tragic boat accident off the coast of Yemen as they attempted to make the dangerous travel across, hoping to find same refuge in late May.
“The tragedy is the largest single loss of life of migrants and refugees attempting to reach Yemen via the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden this year,” Adrian Edwards, spokesman for the UN’s refugee agency, told reporters in Geneva this Friday.

Over 2000 illegal African migrants, mostly from Somalia and Ethiopia have travelled to Yemen over the past month alone, all keen to find solace in Yemen. While Yemen remains the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula, plagued by political instability and insecurity, African refugees have nevertheless flooded in in their hundreds of thousands since 2011, many having identified Yemen as a gateway to rich Gulf countries.
“The victims were reportedly buried by local residents after their bodies washed ashore near the Bab Al Mandeb area off Yemen’s coast,” UNHCR said in a statement.
Coast guards in Yemen have told the Yemen Post under cover of anonymity as they are not allowed to speak to the press, that while such tragedies are not necessarily legion they are not rare either. Desperate to flee violence, poverty and persecution in their homeland, African refugees often tempt the odds by embarking into overcrowded and often unsafe boats to cross over Yemen.
Concurring Yemen coast guards’ statement Edward noted, “Over the past five years, more than half a million people, mainly Somalis, Ethiopians and Eritreans, have crossed the dangerous waters of the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea to reach Yemen.”
He added “Boats are overcrowded and smugglers have reportedly thrown passengers overboard to prevent capsizing or avoid detection.”
If the UNHCR has called on Yemen officials to watch more carefully over their waters in order to prevent such a heavy loss of life in the future, it is likely such accidents will continue to happen as more African migrants will feel compelled to flee their respective countries, warned activists in Yemen.