GENEVA (Reuters) - Roughly 50 teenage Somali and Ethiopian migrants were "deliberately drowned" early on Wednesday by a smuggler who forced 120 passengers into the sea off Yemen's coast, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said. "They were all quite young, the average age was around 16," IOM spokeswoman Olivia Headon said. IOM officials spoke with 27 survivors who reported that a further 42 people had survived but had already left the beach, she said. The migrants, who included some young women, had headed to war-torn Yemen in order to seek opportunities in Gulf countries. Already this year 55,000 migrants from the Horn of Africa have taken the hazardous route, IOM said.

Source: Ethiopian News August 09, 2017 19:16 UTC