76 African migrants dead, dozens missing after boat sinks off Yemen

At least 76 people were killed and dozens are missing after a boat carrying mostly Ethiopian migrants sank off Yemen, in the latest tragedy on the perilous sea route, officials told AFP on Monday.

Yemeni security officials said 76 bodies had been recovered and 32 people rescued from the shipwreck in the Gulf of Aden. The UN migration agency said 157 people were on board.

Sunday's incident was "one of the deadliest" migrant shipwrecks off Yemen this year, Abdusattor Esoev, the International Organisation for Migration's chief of mission for Yemen, told AFP.

The ship was headed to Abyan governorate in southern Yemen.

Some of those rescued have been transferred to Yemen's Aden, near Abyan, a security official said.

The UN agency earlier gave a toll of at least 68 dead, with Esoev telling AFP that "the fate of the missing is still unknown."

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.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See's secretary of state, said the Pope was "deeply saddened by the devastating loss of life".

'NO CHOICE'

Each year, thousands brave the so-called "Eastern Route" from Djibouti to Yemen across the Red Sea, in the hope of eventually reaching rich countries.

The IOM recorded at least 558 deaths on the Red Sea route last year, 462 of them from boat accidents.

"This route is predominantly controlled by smugglers and human-trafficking networks... Refugees and migrants have no other alternative but to hire their services," Ayla Bonfiglio, of the Mixed Migration Centre research and policy organisation, told AFP.

"Migrants are well aware of the risks, but with no legal pathways and families relying on remittances from Saudi Arabia or the Emirates, many feel they have no choice," she added.

Last month, at least eight people died after smugglers forced 150 migrants off a boat in the Red Sea, according to the IOM.

The vessel that sank off Abyan was carrying mostly Ethiopian migrants, according to the province's security directorate and an IOM source.

Yemeni security forces were recovering a "significant" number of bodies, the Abyan directorate said on Sunday.

Agence France-Presse