She trekked to the Somali zone of Ethiopia, crossed the border into Somalia and paid to board a boat bound for Yemen. Armed smugglers forced Taha to jump off the boat into the choppy water while its engine continued to run. We were holding hands with the two women whom we [later] buried," Taha told VOA's Afaan Oromoo service by phone last week. Smugglers intentionally pushed peopleIn separate incidents on August 8 and 9, smugglers forced about 300 people from their boats as they approached the coast of Shabwa, Yemen on the Arabian Sea. This fact is "shocking," Headon told VOA, because "the average age of these Somali and Ethiopian migrants was approximately 16.

Source: Ethiopian News August 20, 2017 09:00 UTC