Hunger and thirst killed African migrants [Archives:2006/914/Local News]

SANA'A, Jan. 22 – The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office renewed its Jan. 20 appeal for action to stem the flow of those falling prey to smugglers in their flight from Somalia and Ethiopia.

The appeal followed the Jan. 16 appearance of a boat on Yemeni shores carrying 65 people and six dead bodies, UNHCR staff in Sana'a said. Another 14 people reportedly died during the voyage – six who threw themselves into the sea because they could not bear the thirst and another eight who died on board of thirst and hunger and whose bodies were thrown overboard.

“Once again, people are dying trying to reach Yemen aboard smugglers' boats crossing the Gulf of Aden from Somalia,” UNHCR spokesman William Spindler said in Geneva.

The boat, which left near Bossaso port in Somalia's Puntland region with little food or water, encountered difficulty when its engine failed, drifting in the Gulf of Aden for six days.

“That horrific voyage is not unusual,” Spindler told reporters in Geneva. “Smugglers frequently beat their passengers or force them overboard while still well away from shore. In the past, UNHCR has thanked crews of passing ships who saved people found drifting helplessly in the shark-infested waters.”

UNHCR staff arranged medical assistance for survivors – some of whom had bite marks from crazed fellow passengers – and took 25 others to a transit center.

Last September, the agency called for international action to stem the flow of desperate people crossing the Gulf of Aden, after at least 150 migrants died in a three-week period.

UNHCR has been working with authorities in northeast Somalia to inform people about the dangers of using smugglers to cross the Gulf of Aden through videos, radio programs and other media.

The agency reiterated that Yemen, one of the region's few countries to sign the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees, has been generous in receiving migrants and refugees. Yemeni authorities automatically grant refugee status to Somali citizens arriving in Yemen.

According to UNHCR, there are more than 80,000 registered refugees currently in Yemen, some 75,000 of whom are Somalis and possibly hundreds of thousands more who have yet to register.
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