Fifty-five people drowned, or were missing and presumed drowned, after an overcrowded boat capsized off the coast of Somalia, the U.N. refugee agency said Thursday. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement from Nairobi that the accident Tuesday was the worst such incident in the Gulf of Aden since early 2011, when 57 Somali migrants died attempting to reach Yemen. The U.N. agency quoted the five survivors, all young Somali men, as saying the boat was overcrowded and experienced trouble almost immediately after leaving the port of Bosasso in the northern Somali separatist region of Puntland. The vessel capsized only 15 minutes after departing, spilling all 60 Somali and Ethiopian passengers into the sea. Twenty-three bodies have been recovered, and 32 people are presumed dead.
