At least 29 Somali and Ethiopian refugees were deliberately drowned on Wednesday by a smuggler who forced 120 passengers into the sea off the Yemen coast, the United Nations migration agency International Organization for Migration said. Most of those drowned were teenagers.
The incident happened as the refugees approached the coast of Shabwa, a Yemeni Governorate along the Arabian Sea.
“The survivors told our colleagues on the beach that the smuggler pushed them to the sea, when he saw some ‘authority types’ near the coast,” Laurent de Boeck, the IOM Yemen Chief of Mission said. “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.
The bodies were found buried in shallow graves on the beach in Shabwa. Twenty seven survivors told IOM officials that at least 42 more had survived, but had already left Shabwa beach. The refugees were on their way to Gulf countries through Yemen.
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