Immigrants’ bodies washed upon Yemeni cost [Archives:2008/1190/Local News]

SANA'A, Sep, 14 ) More than two dozen African immigrants drowned after smugglers, transporting them across the Gulf of Aden from the Horn of Africa, forced them overboard at gunpoint off the coast of Yemen, said the UN refugees' agency on Wednesday.

According to the UNHCR, the smugglers forced 120 passengers, who were fleeing the bloody conflicts in Somalia, to swim to shore in the middle of Tuesday night.

Wednesday morning, 35 bodies were found washed up near Wadi Al-Barakin, survivors told Medecins Sans Fronti'res (MSF).

The survivors said that the smugglers got nervous as they thought they would be captured by Yemeni security, so they started to push people overboard, saying that a smaller vessel would come to take the immigrants ashore.

“In order to intimidate us