Gulf of Aden Smugglers

With prices ranging from $70 to $200, smugglers will take refugees from war-torn Somalia across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen.

Unfortunately, when the despicable human smugglers run into problems on the boat trips, they just toss their cargo overboard. The poor refugees fend for themselves or die.

Smugglers forced more than 130 people overboard on a boat carrying migrants from Somalia to Yemen, the UN refugee agency said Friday, as a search was mounted for the missing passengers.

About 100 of them were still missing in the Gulf of Aden, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said.

“UNHCR and its partners are searching for about 100 people reported missing in the Gulf of Aden after being forced overboard by smugglers off the coast of Yemen,” UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond told journalists.

According to survivors, all but 12 of the 150 people who left the Somali port of Marera were forced overboard about five kilometers off Yemen’s coast, said Redmond. The 12 were placed in a smaller boat while the others had to swim to shore.

“Survivors said they counted a total of 47 people reaching shore (including the 12 in the boat), and later saw Yemeni authorities burying five bodies,” said Redmond.

The incident brought the total number of people reported missing in the region this year to 365, while at least 230 are known to have died.

This report is hardly news, just a recent example of the human tragedy that takes place regularly on the Gulf of Aden. Literally, thousands of migrating people have lost their lives during smuggling operations.