Sana'a: Europe and the Arabs

The death toll from a shipwreck off the coast of Yemen has risen to 68, with dozens missing.
The International Organization for Migration reported on Monday that the death toll from a shipwreck off the coast of Yemen last weekend has already reached 68. Dozens remain missing.
"So far, 68 people on board the ship have died, but only 12 of the 157 passengers have been rescued. The fate of the missing remains unknown," said Abdussattar Isoev, IOM's chief of mission in Yemen. A previous assessment from security sources on Sunday had reported that at least 27 people had been killed. European media outlets covered the incident, and the Belgian newspaper Newsblade reported on its website on Monday morning, "Many refugees cross the Bab al-Mandab Strait because Gulf countries, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, employ foreign workers." According to other media reports, this incident is the latest in a series of shipwrecks off Yemen that have claimed the lives of hundreds of African migrants fleeing poverty and wars in the continent in the hope of reaching the wealthy Gulf states.
The ship, carrying 154 Ethiopian migrants, sank in the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Abyan Governorate in southern Yemen. Twelve migrants on board survived the incident, according to Abdul Satar Issouef, head of the UN Migration Agency in Yemen.
Issouef added that the bodies of 54 migrants washed ashore in the Khanfar area. Fourteen others were also found dead and taken to a hospital morgue in Zinjibar, the provincial capital on the southern coast. The Abyan Security Directorate says a large-scale search and rescue operation is underway due to the large number of dead and missing migrants. It noted that a large number of bodies have already been recovered after being found scattered over a wide area of the beach.