More than 90 people were killed when a migrant boat sank off Yemen’s coast, Yemeni officials and a source at the International Organization for Migration told AFP Tuesday, updating earlier tolls.
The boat carrying mostly Ethiopian migrants sank on Sunday as it headed towards Abyan governorate in southern Yemen, a frequent destination for boats smuggling African migrants hoping to reach the wealthy Gulf states.
Late Tuesday, a Yemeni source at UN agency the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that two bodies, which were initially buried by local fishermen after they washed up on the beach and began rotting, had been recovered.
This has taken the toll of confirmed deaths from the shipwreck to 96.
Earlier a Yemeni security source and a local official in Abyan said 94 bodies had been recovered and most of them had been buried, with the local official saying corpses were still washing up on the shore.
A journalist collaborating with AFP saw at least two corpses washed up on the shore, near the area where the ship sank.
He also saw worn-out tents and African people being trucked out of the remote area from which smugglers operate.
Authorities said security forces and government allies in Abyan carried out a sweep against camp sites for migrants on the coast, operated by smugglers.
Abyan’s province top security official, Brigadier General Ali Nasser Buzaid, said the dead included men and women.
Local authorities and the IOM said the boat was carrying around 200 people.
On Monday, two Yemeni security officials told AFP that 32 people were rescued and dozens were still missing.
Despite the civil war that has ravaged Yemen since 2014, the impoverished country has remained a key transit point for irregular migration, in particular from Ethiopia which itself has been roiled by ethnic conflict.
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