As many as 300 migrants may have died after a ship capsized off the coast of Yemen, according to a UN official.
David Gressly, the top United Nations official in Yemen, said as many as 300 Yemeni migrants may have died when their ship capsized, but gave no further details of the incident.
His comments, made during a webinar sponsored by the National Council on US-Arab Relations on Thursday, came a week after residents reported seeing a number of bodies washed up in Ras al-Arah, on Yemen’s Red Sea coast.
An official in the area said a suspected migrant boat had sunk about 18 nautical miles off the coast of al-Mokha.
The stretch of coast is notorious for the smuggling of migrants from the Horn of Africa into Yemen.
Recommended
The sea journey from countries including Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Djibouti, is part of a longstanding migration route to take people north through Yemen into the nearby rich Gulf states for work.
Yemen has been mired in violence since a Saudi-led coalition intervened against the Houthis in 2015, with 80 per cent of Yemen’s population needing aid.
The United States on Thursday called on the international community, especially regional countries, to fulfil their pledges to increase funding for humanitarian assistance to Yemen and warned that aid programmes could otherwise be forced to close.
Timothy Lenderking, US special envoy to Yemen, told the webinar humanitarian programmes for Yemen will begin to close unless contributions increase in the next few months.
Sarah Charles, a senior official with the US Agency for International Development, echoed Mr Lenderking’s warning.
“We commend the generous pledges made by other generous donors so far this year,” she said, but added: “The fact is that more funding is required to address growing needs.”
Mr Gressly said governments have yet to fulfil pledges made earlier this year totalling $2.1bn to help address the dire humanitarian crisis caused by Yemen’s civil war.
He also said humanitarian organisations are having problems reaching some six million Yemenis.
Additional reporting by Reuters
