70 Ethiopians drown off Yemeni coast

SANAA: Seventy Ethiopian migrants have drowned after their boat sank near the entrance to the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen, the Yemeni Interior Ministry said.
The boat capsized in bad weather off the port city of Al-Makha, near the Strait of Bab El-Mandeb, the ministry said in a statement posted on its website Sunday. It did not clarify when the boat sank.
“All those who were on board died,” the statement said, adding that all were from Ethiopia.
Thousands of people fleeing troubled countries in the Horn of Africa try to reach Yemen every year in the hope of making their way on to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.
On May 31, 60 migrants from Ethiopia and Somalia along with two Yemeni crew members drowned in the worst such tragedy off the coast of Yemen this year.
Yemen currently hosts 246,000 refugees, of whom more than 230,000 are from Somalia and a smaller number from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Iraq and Syria, according to UNHCR figures.