At least 35 African migrants drowned and 13 were missing after a rickety smuggler's boat carrying 110 people capsized off Yemen's south-eastern coasts Today, dpa cited police as saying. Police officials told the German Press Agency dpa that 35 bodies, including five women, washed up on the shore of Rada, some 260 kilometres east of the southern port city of Aden. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said 62 managed to swim to shore, and were taken to a medical centre run by the relief organisation Doctors Without Borders, in nearby Ahwar town. They said the accident took place early in the day as the overcrowded boat capsized in strong winds as it approached the shore after three-day trip across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia. They added the passengers were Somalis and Ethiopians, but they were not able to provide a breakdown of the victims' nationalities. The local NGO, Society of Human Solidarity, said its field teams buried the bodies in a graveyard in Ahwar. Another boat carrying 100 migrants arrived to the same area and its passengers disembarked safely, the officials said. Many African migrants, mostly from conflict-torn Somalia, try to reach Yemen, which is seen as a gateway to Europe and the oil-rich countries of the Arabian peninsula. Hundreds of people perish every year in the perilous exodus that takes thousands of desperate Somalis and Ethiopians to Yemen in small boats run by people-traffickers operating from Somali ports. Since the beginning of this year, 339 boats and 17,035 people arrived in Yemen from the Horn of Africa via this dangerous sea route this year and 74 died while another 51 have gone missing. Last year, 50,000 people were smuggled into Yemen by sea and 949 died making the trip.
