Alwaght- At least 55 people are feared to have drowned off the coast of Yemen after being forced from a migrant boat, in the second such incident within 24 hours.
More refugees and migrants have been "deliberately drowned" by human smugglers for the second time in 24 hours off the coast of Yemen, according to the United Nation's migration agency.
Patrol teams from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) found in the south of Yemen at least five bodies on Thursday morning, and are still searching for at least 50 more who remain missing.
On Wednesday the IOM said 51 people had been “deliberately drowned” in a similar incident. Survivors told the IOM that the smuggler pushed about 120 people into the sea after he thought he had seen some “authority-type” figures off the Yemeni coast. The passengers’ average age was about 16, the IOM said.
“The utter disregard for human life by these smugglers, and all human smugglers worldwide, is nothing less than immoral,” said William Lacy Swing, director general of the IOM. “What is a teenager’s life worth? On this route to the Persian Gulf countries, it can be as little as $100.”
The IOM says about 55,000 people have left Horn of Africa countries for Yemen since January, with most coming from Somalia and Ethiopia. A third of them are estimated to be women.
But once in Yemen, the refugees and migrants face the brutality of war, forcing them back to Sudan, Egypt and Libya, where they cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe.
Last month, UN investigators accused a Saudi Arabia-led military alliance of carrying out a deadly March attack on a Somali migrant boat off Yemen adding that the coalition is now a cover for some states to avoid individual blame.
The Saudi-led coalition currently engaged in an illegal invasion of Yemen denied striking the boat in the Red Sea near the port of Hodeidah. The investigators said the attack killed 42 people and injured 34 of the more than 140 people onboard.
