Migrants thrown into the water in the Gulf of Aden: 6 drowned, 11 missing

Six persons were drowned and eleven are missing after being thrown into the water, Friday in the Gulf of Aden, by their traffickers as they tried to reach Yemen from Somalia, announced Tuesday the High Commissioner of the UN for Refugees (UNHCR).

•     All of 40 Somalis and 12 Ethiopians who were in the boat were forced to jump into the water off the coast of Yemen near Huseysa, 500 km east of Aden, under the threat of smugglers.
  
      The boat was part of a fleet of seven boats of migrants who were crossing that day, told the press in Geneva Ron Redmond, the spokesman of the UNHCR.
  
      Illegal immigrants had left Thursday Suweto in the region of Bossaso in Somalia. When the smugglers have detected the presence of the police on the Yemeni shore, they refused to come closer to the coast and forced their passengers into the water, the survivors said to UNHCR.
  
      This is the third deadliest episode of its kind since the beginning which amounted to 23 dead and 24 missing, according to UNHCR.
  
      A total of 168 boats have transported 9449 people to the coasts of Yemen since 1st of January, a slight increase over the same period last year.
  
      In 2008, more than 50,000 illegal immigrants have turned to smugglers to cross by boat the Gulf of Aden between Somalia and Yemen, an increase of 70% compared to 2007 (29.500 people).
  
      Of these 50,091 people who undertook this trip, said in Geneva in early January, the spokesman for the UNHCR, "at least 590 died and 359 are missing."
  
      The death toll was much higher in 2007, with about 1400, noted Ron Redmond. The vast majority of people who die are killed in the same circumstances, forced to jump into the water by smugglers who refuse to approach the coast.
  
      The increase in the movement in the Gulf reflects "the desperate situation in Somalia and the Horn of Africa, a region marked by civil war, political instability, starvation and poverty, had said the UNHCR.
  
      
  Ennaharonline/ M. Oudina