18 Somali Refugees Drown Near Yemen

Yemeni officials and the U.N. refugee agency say at least 18 people, most of them Somalis, drowned when they were forced to jump into the sea as the boat they were on neared the Yemeni coast.

Officials said 55 refugees were rescued but about 27 others were still missing.

The survivors, most of them Somalis and Ethiopians, said the crew forced them at gunpoint to jump overboard.

Other Somali and Ethiopian refugees reported a similar incident in August. The U.N. refugee agency says illegal migrants are often forced into the sea while still some way off shore by captains seeking to evade Yemeni coastal patrols.

The agency estimates that there are about 70,000 refugees in Yemen, most of them Somalis. The Yemeni government puts the figure at more than 165,000.

Since the fall of Somalia's central government in 1991 and the spread of clan violence in the country, tens of thousands of Somalis have sought asylum in Yemen.

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