Dozens drown in failed immigration to Yemen

At least 58 people drowned and some 150 others were missing when armed men smuggling would-be immigrants to Yemen in two boats forced them overboard several kilometres from the shore, sources said on Monday.

The boats had set sail on 30 August from a coastal village some 25 km from northeastern Somalia's port town of Bossaso, the commercial capital of the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, Abdinasir Mire Adan, a reporter for the Bossaso-based Midnimo Radio, told IRIN.

The boats, he added, had been carrying 250 people, many of whom were women and children.

The acting Somali Consul-General, Husayn Haji Ahmad, told IRIN by phone from the Yemeni port city of Aden that as of Sunday, 37 people had been found alive.

He said the smugglers, out of fear of interception by Yemeni coastguards, had on Friday afternoon forced people - at gunpoint - to jump into the sea some five km from the shore.

"Many of those people who jumped did not even know how to swim," Ahmad said. "Local fishermen picked up some of the 35 men and two women, while others swam to the shore."

"[Some] bodies of dead passengers washed up on the beach," he added, and said search and rescue operations by Yemeni authorities were continuing, but "hopes of finding any more survivors are dwindling".

Hundreds of Somalis have lost their lives at sea in the recent past trying to cross the Gulf of Aden in search of better economic opportunities in Yemen and other Gulf states.

"In the past three years alone, we estimate that over 2,500 people drowned while trying to reach Yemen and Gulf destinations," Ahmad said. "So far this year, the death toll from this type of incident stands at 650, including this one."

He urged the international community to help the Somali people "to stem this continuing tragedy and improve conditions inside Somalia".

The whereabouts of the boats' captains and their crews remained unknown, Ahmad said.

Most of the passengers on the doomed vessels were from southern Somalia, according to Adan. He said they were mostly young people and some 30 Ethiopians who had paid between US $70 and $150 for the voyage to Yemen.

Adan said human traffickers had offices in Bossaso and agents in other parts of Somalia.

"They [the traffickers] use small fishing boats that are not seaworthy. They don't really care for the people's safety so long as they get paid," he added.

On 1 September, the UN Independent Expert on the Situation of Human Rights in Somalia, Ghanim Alnajjar, cited trafficking in human beings as one of the common abuses in Somalia.

"The lack of coastline monitoring encourages human trafficking, often with fatal consequences for those who seek to leave Somalia for a better life elsewhere, many of whom drown or arrive at their destination only to discover that their hopes for a better life cannot be realised," Alnajjar told a news conference in Nairobi, Kenya following a trip toSomalia.

He reiterated his call for the creation of an organisation mandated to safeguard the Somali coastline until Somalia's own authorities developed the capacity to undertake that function.