New York: More than 50,000 people fleeing war and poverty made the nearly always perilous, and sometimes deadly voyage, in smugglers boats across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia last year, a 70 per cent increase over 2007.
Giving the statistics, the United Nations refugee agency said at least 590 drowned, often at the hands of the smugglers, and nearly 360 others went missing.
"There were again many reports of people being beaten to death during the crossings in 2008,but most of the deaths were due to drowning after passengers were forced overboard in treacherous waters far off the Yemen coast in a bid by the smugglers to avoid detection by Yemen authorities," UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman Ron Redmond told a news briefing.
"The increase in arrivals reflects the desperate situation in Somalia and the Horn of Africa, a region scarred by civil war, political instability, famine and poverty," he said, putting the arrivals in Yemen at 50,091,compared with 29,500 in 2007. By contrast the 2007 death toll was substantially higher at 1,400.
UNHCR is beefing up its response in Yemen by improving reception conditions for those who manage to reach its shores and has also carried out information campaigns in the Horn of Africa warning people of the dangers of using smugglers.
The agency and its partners also have programmes aimed at improving living conditions of people with protection needs on the Africa side of the Gulf so that they do not need to risk their lives by crossing to Yemen.
UNHCR also called on European Union States, ahead of a Mediterranean ministers meeting next week, to ensure that people seeking asylum have access to territory and to fair procedures for examining their claims.
