SANAA, Nov 22: Sixty-four African migrants, including three children, drowned in the Gulf of Aden while trying to cross from Somalia to Yemen. The bodies were recovered from the sea by fishermen and the Yemeni coastguard after the migrants’ boat overturned off the south-eastern province of Chabwa, the agency said.

It said 25 of the would-be illegal immigrants managed to swim to shore.

The agency, which did not give the nationality of the victims, said a total of 49 bodies were recovered from the spot where the vessel overturned and 15 others were found washed up on the coast.

At the start of November, 40 Somalis drowned after being forced overboard by people traffickers in the Gulf of Aden.

They were part of a group of 120 who set out from the Somali port of Bosasso, the economic capital of Puntland, the semi-autonomous region in the north east of the country.

The UNHCR estimates that more than 20,000 people have made the perilous crossing of the Gulf of Aden to Yemen this year, with more than 439 deaths and another 489 people missing.

—AFP