6 Migrants Dead After Boat Capsizes off Yemen Coast

Six migrants have died and several others remain missing after a boat carrying African migrants capsized in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Yemen’s Shabwa province, according to local authorities cited by Sputnik.

A local official in Shabwa said the smuggling vessel was carrying around 70 Ethiopian migrants when it overturned due to strong winds near the coast of the Radum district, southeast of the provincial capital Ataq. Six migrants drowned while attempting to reach the Yemeni shore, while approximately 60 others survived the incident. Authorities say several people are still missing.

The tragedy highlights the persistent dangers faced by African migrants attempting to reach the Arabian Peninsula through irregular sea routes. Yemen remains a major transit point for migrants from the Horn of Africa seeking work in Saudi Arabia, often travelling on overcrowded and unsafe boats across the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea.

According to the International Organization for Migration, similar disasters have repeatedly occurred along the migration corridor linking the Horn of Africa to Yemen. In August last year, at least 68 people died and dozens more went missing after a boat carrying 154 Ethiopian migrants sank off the coast of Abyan province in southern Yemen.

The UN migration agency has recorded 3,435 deaths and disappearances along the eastern migration route between the Horn of Africa and Yemen since 2014, underlining the scale of the humanitarian crisis facing migrants in the region.

Yemen itself has been grappling with a prolonged conflict for more than a decade between the internationally recognised government and the Ansar Allah movement. The war, which intensified after a Saudi-led coalition launched military operations in March 2015, has devastated the country and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

The United Nations estimates that the conflict had claimed around 377,000 lives by the end of 2021, while the Yemeni economy has suffered cumulative losses of approximately 126 billion dollars. Nearly 80 percent of Yemen’s population of about 35 million people now require humanitarian assistance, according to UN reports.