More than 100 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 today.
Most of the "boat people" died when a vessel carrying 93 passengers sank on March 3rd in the Gulf of Aden after developing a technical problem, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said. Only the crew of four are thought to have survived.
A further 18 Africans are believed to have drowned on March 7th 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.
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 being cared for at a "reception centre" in southern Yemen.