More African migrants drown as exodus increases, officials say

Despite Yemeni government efforts to deter African migrants crossing the Gulf of Aden to the country, officials say there has been an increase in boat arrivals recently and at least 39 deaths at sea.

[Read this report in Arabic]

"Yemen's coast line, which stretches over 2,500km, is so long the coast guards cannot patrol all of it. It is difficult for security authorities to monitor all smuggling boats as smugglers usually change their [docking] destinations," Ahmed Hayel, an official at the Ministry of Interior, told IRIN on 23 February.

The official said that when smuggling boats are apprehended in Yemeni waters, security authorities arrest the smugglers and try them in Yemeni courts but cannot force passengers to return. Last year, around 15 smuggling boats were apprehended, Hayel said.

On 21 and 22 February, 500 to 600 Africans arrived by boat in Yemen, according to Hayel. They were mostly Somalis but included some 80 Ethiopians, who he said would be deported back to their country as Yemen only grants refugee status to Somalis, despite being signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.

Recent African deaths

Hussein Haji, the Somali consul in the port city of Aden, told IRIN that on 20 February, 39 African migrants - Somalis and Ethiopians - died and another 30 went missing near Bir Ali, a coastal village in the southern province of Shabwa.

"The incident took place after smugglers disembarked the passengers before reaching the shore. Not all of them were able to swim. Parts of two passengers' bodies were found after sharks attacked them," he said. Smugglers sometimes throw passengers overboard when approaching Yemen’s coast in order to reduce a boat’s weight and make it faster so as to evade coast guards.

Haji said 12 women were among those who drowned, and that local authorities buried the dead a day later.

"Survivors were in bad condition when they arrived. Smugglers had beaten them with sticks and guns and some were in a state of shock after what had happened in the middle of the night," the Somali diplomat said, adding that in January 2008, 215 Africans had died in similar incidents.

According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), over 1,400 African migrants, mostly Somalis, died or went missing on Yemeni shores in 2007.

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