Refugee Crisis: Dozens of migrants deliberately drowned by smugglers

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Alive and on dry ground.Survivors of the ordeal made it to shore to tell their horrifying stories.SOT Chissey MUELLER, IOM migrant assistance and protection officer in Yemen”These migrants had been pushed off a boat that a smuggler was bringing into Yemen.”As a result almost 50 people died, because they cannot swim.”Most of the 120 migrants pushed off the boat were young Ethiopians and Somalis.Less than a day later, another smuggler boat, taking the same route, forced a further 180 people into the sea… this time closer to shore so the casualty was smaller.SOT Laurent DE BOECK, IOM chief of mission in Yemen “It”s maybe linked to the fact that there is reinforcement of control at the borders and that smugglers are panicking but the reaction is actually worse, because instead of preventing them entering they basically continue their business by killing people.”Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the region ravaged by civil war and hit by a cholera outbreak.Yet many Somalis and Ethiopians enter the country hoping to then reach richer Gulf nations.The UN”s migration agency says around 55,000 migrants left the Horn of Africa to come to Yemen since the start of the year.

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