At least 58 African migrants, mostly Somalis, were feared dead after a smuggler's boat capsized off the coast of Yemen, a Yemeni coastguard source said Friday. "Sixteen bodies were found and 32 survivors reached shore safely," a source told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on condition of anonymity. He said 42 people were missing and feared drowned after the the boat carrying 90 people, capsized in deep waters off the coast of the southern Yemeni province of Abyan late Thursday, according to dpa. This was the second accident involving African migrants off Yemen in a week. On April 6, at least 34 people drowned after smugglers forced them into deep waters off the Yemeni coast, according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR). Survivors said they were in three boats carrying 365 people, including 234 Ethiopians and 131 Somalis in a two-day voyage from the Bosaso city in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in northeast Somalia. Hundreds of people perish every year attempting the short but hazardous voyage from Somalia to Yemen across the Gulf of Aden. In 2006, some 27,000 people made the perilous voyage to Yemen, with 330 deaths and another 300 reported missing and believed dead. Since the beginning of 2007, more than 5,600 people have landed on the Yemeni coast and at least 200 people have died and many are still missing, according to the UNHCR. Yemen has become a magnet for refugees fleeing violence since the outbreak of civil war in Somalia in 1991. Most migrants use Yemen as a gateway to the oil-rich countries of the Arabian Peninsula or Europe. There are currently more than 88,000 registered refugees in Yemen, of whom nearly 84,000 are Somalis. Yemen, the only Arabian Peninsula country that is a signatory of the 1951 Geneva Convention and 1967 protocol on the status of refugees. It has been automatically granting prime facie refugee status to Somalis arriving illegally in the country since collapse of their government in 1991. Ethiopians are not automatically considered refugees, but their cases are considered individually. -- SPA
