The boat had left Bosaso, a port in Somaliland on the Gulf of Aden, around 16 hours earlier, the survivors said. “The smugglers told us it was very risky to approach the shore as Yemeni authorities had arrested smugglers there. I remember some were very young and did not know how to swim, ” Aano said when contacted by telephone in Yemen. The IOM estimates that around 55,000 migrants have left the Horn of Africa to come to Yemen since January. Despite the risks, Yemen remains attractive to African migrants because there is no central authority to prevent them from travelling onward.

Source: The Guardian August 14, 2017 04:00 UTC