A boat carrying at least 45 refugees capsized off the coast of Yemen’s Taiz on Wednesday night, leaving only four survivors, according to the UN refugee agency in Yemen.
The agency attributed the incident to strong winds and overloading. It is now collaborating with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to assist and protect the survivors. No further information was provided about the other refugees.
In a previous incident in June, a vessel carrying 260 migrants from Somalia capsized off the Yemeni coast, resulting in at least 49 deaths and 140 missing persons.
Since 2014, IOM has recorded 1,860 migrant deaths and disappearances on migration routes from East Africa and the Horn of Africa to Gulf countries. Last year, 97,000 migrants from the Horn of Africa arrived in Yemen, according to the United Nations.
