“The survivors told our colleagues on the beach that the
smuggler pushed them into the sea when he saw some 'authority types'
near the coast,” said Laurent de Boeck, the Yemen Chief of Mission of
the International Organization for Migration (IOM ).
“They also told us that the smuggler has already returned
to Somalia to continue his business and pick up more migrants to bring
to Yemen on the same route. This is shocking and inhumane. The suffering
of migrants on this migration route is enormous. Too many young people
pay smugglers with the false hope of a better future,” Mr. de Boeck
added.
According to IOM, up to 180 migrants were reportedly thrown
into the sea from a boat today by the smugglers. Five bodies have been
recovered so far, and around 50 are reported missing.
This latest incident comes barely 24 hours after smugglers
forced more than 120 Somali and Ethiopian migrants into the sea as they
approached the coast of Shabwa, a Yemeni Governorate along the Arabian
Sea, resulting in the drowning of around 50 migrants. The migrants had
been hoping to reach countries in the Gulf via war-torn Yemen.
Shortly after yesterday's tragedy, IOM staff found the
shallow graves of 29 migrants on a beach in Shabwa, during a routine
patrol. The dead had been quickly buried by those who survived the
smuggler's deadly actions. The approximate average age of the passengers
on the boat was 16.
“The Secretary-General is heart-broken by this continuing
tragedy,” his Spokesman Stéphane Dujarric told reporters at the daily
briefing in New York.
“This is why he continues to stress that the international
community must give priority to preventing and resolving a variety of
situations which both generate mass movement and expose those already on
the move to significant danger,” he added, underscoring the need to
increase legal pathways for regular migration and offer credible
alternatives to these dangerous crossings for people in need of
international protection.
Since January of this year, IOM estimates that around
55,000 migrants left the Horn of Africa to come to Yemen, most with the
aim of trying to find better opportunities in the Gulf countries. More
than 30,000 of those migrants are under the age of 18 from Somalia and
Ethiopia, while a third are estimated to be female.
This journey is especially hazardous during the current
windy season in the Indian Ocean. Smugglers are active in the Red Sea
and the Gulf of Aden, offering fake promises to vulnerable migrants.
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