AL-MUKALLA: At least 38 African migrants, most of them women, have died after an overloaded boat capsized near the southern province of Shabwa in Yemen. More than 150 passengers are still missing.

An aid worker told Arab News that the migrants, including 28 women, perished after the vessel sank two nautical miles off the coast of Al-Noshema on Monday morning.

“Survivors informed us that the boat, carrying 260 migrants, sank owing to heavy winds,” said the Yemeni worker, who asked to remain anonymous, adding that 72 migrants had arrived safely at the shore.

Another relief worker who treated the survivors reported 48 people dead and 15 in a serious condition.

Images shared with Arab News show piled-up bodies being transported by vehicle to the grave.

According to Abdul Sallam bin Sama, a journalist from Shabwa, fishermen spotted the bodies floating in the sea and began hauling them to the beach. The dead were buried on Monday at Ain Bamabad.

Along with the Red Sea Ras Al-Ara in Lahj province, coastal areas in Shabwa such as Al-Noshema are among the landing locations for thousands of African migrants who arrive in Yemen each year.

Shabwa residents told Arab News that the number of those entering the province had increased significantly in recent months.

“They come in large numbers almost every day on the coast of Shabwa. Migrants who have money use a car to Attaq, whilst others who do not walk to the city,” said Omer Awadh, a Yemeni officer.
The International Organization for Migration said this year that the number of African migrants coming yearly had tripled from roughly 27,000 in 2021 to over 90,000 in 2023, despite the war in Yemen and recent Houthi assaults on ships in the Red Sea.

Meanwhile, US Central Command announced on Monday morning that a ballistic missile fired by the Houthis had damaged the Liberian-flagged, Swiss-owned and operated container ship M/V Tavvishi in the Gulf of Aden during the last 24 hours. A second missile was destroyed.

The Houthis launched two missiles at the M/V Norderney, an Antigua and Barbados-flagged cargo ship owned and managed by Germany, also in the Gulf of Aden, but the ship proceeded despite the damage.

US Central Command said its forces destroyed a drone launched by the Houthis from Yemen, as well as two land attack cruise missiles and one missile launcher in Houthi-controlled Yemeni territory.

The Houthis claimed on Sunday they had attacked the M/V Tavvishi and the M/V Norderney for allegedly breaching a ban on sailing to Israel and vowed to continue targeting ships until Israel lifted its blockade of the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

The Houthis have seized one commercial ship, sunk another, and launched hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones at international commercial and navy ships in the international sea lanes off Yemen since November last year.

CAIRO: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in the Middle East on Monday hoping to deliver the ceasefire that President Joe Biden proposed last month, in an all-out push by Washington to secure an end to the Gaza war.

The top US diplomat met Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in Cairo and was due to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense chief in Israel later in the day.

Ahead of his trip, Israel and Hamas both doubled down on hard-line positions that have scuppered all previous attempts to end the fighting, while Israel has pressed on with assaults in central and southern Gaza, among the bloodiest of the war.

“We are committed to total victory,” Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office, quoting remarks he made on Sunday to relatives of Israelis killed in Gaza.

“What is the main dispute? It is over Hamas’ demand ... that we commit to stopping the war without achieving our goals of eliminating Hamas.... I am not prepared to do so.”

Hamas, for its part, said Washington must push its ally Israel to halt the fighting.

“We call upon the US administration to put pressure on the occupation to stop the war on Gaza, and the Hamas movement is ready to deal positively with any initiative that secures an end to the war,” senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters ahead of Blinken’s arrival.

The war has now entered its ninth month, since Hamas-led fighters killed 1,200 people and took some 250 others hostage in a rampage through southern Israel. In response, Israel launched an assault on the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians and reduced most of the enclave to wasteland.

Palestinian officials said 40 more bodies arrived in hospitals over the past 24 hours. Thousands more dead are believed buried under rubble.

ASSAULTS IN RAFAH, NUSEIRAT

In Rafah, the city on the southern edge of Gaza where Israel launched an offensive last month in defiance of White House pleas, residents said on Monday tanks had been trying to thrust deeper toward the north in the early hours of the morning. They were on the edge of Shaboura, one of the most densely populated neighborhoods at the heart of the city.

Around half of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million people had been sheltering in Rafah before last month’s assault, and a million have had to flee again.

Since last week, Israel has also launched a large-scale assault in the central Gaza Strip, around the small city of Deir Al-Balah, the last population center yet to be stormed. On Monday, residents said the Israelis had pulled back from some areas there but were keeping up air strikes and shelling. Residents in Nuseirat north of Deir Al-Balah were still clearing debris after Israel freed four hostages in a massive raid there on Saturday. Palestinian officials say 274 people were killed, making it of the deadliest assaults of the war. Israeli forces said they were aware of under 100 Palestinians killed there in intense gunbattles, and did not know how many were combatants.

“We are exhausted and helpless, enough is enough,” said Jehad, who fled under fire from Saturday’s assault in Nuseirat with his family and was now in Deir Al-Balah, speaking by text message. The family had already been displaced from Gaza City to Nuseirat, to Khan Younis, to Rafah and back to Nuseirat before their latest flight.

In video obtained by Reuters from Nuseirat, resident Anas Alyan, standing outside the ruins of his home, described how Israel commandos wearing shorts had appeared in the streets, firing wildly while F-16s and quadcopters fired from the air.

“Anyone moving in the street was killed — anyone moving, or walking, was killed immediately,” he said. “There are still children under this building. We don’t know how to pull them out,” he said, pointing to one ruin. “Today we found children martyred in that building,” he said, pointing to another. After months of failed peace efforts, Biden chose a new tack with his public announcement of his proposal for a ceasefire on May 31, describing it as an offer already accepted by Israel. US officials say Biden deliberately unveiled it without asking the Israelis first, to increase pressure for a deal.

Washington is now seeking a vote backing the ceasefire proposal at the UN Security Council.

Full details of the proposal have not been publicly disclosed, but the offer as described by US officials is similar to texts floated since January in previous failed peace efforts: a long truce, over several stages, with gradual release of Israeli hostages ultimately leading to an end to the war.

What is different this time is that Israeli forces have now stormed most territory inside the Gaza Strip at least once, and Netanyahu is under greater domestic political pressure to reach a deal. Fighting has also escalated sharply in northern Israel along the Lebanese border, raising the threat of an all-out war between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group.

Benny Gantz, a popular centrist former military chief, quit Israel’s war cabinet on Sunday over what he described as the failure to outline a plan for the war’s end. That leaves Netanyahu more reliant on far right allies who say they will bring down his government if he agrees any deal that leaves Hamas in power. As in all previous peace attempts, Washington secured Israeli agreement to the text first, before seeking approval from Hamas through Egyptian and Qatari mediators. Israeli officials acknowledge approving the offer, despite one Netanyahu aide describing it as “not a good deal.”

Hamas says it already agreed to the last Israeli peace offer earlier in May, only for Israel to renege. Israel says the militants have previously attached unacceptable conditions.