17/01/06, NAIROBI, 17 Jan 2006 (IRIN) - A boat carrying 110 Somali and Ethiopian migrants destined for Yemen went missing after leaving the northeastern coast of Somalia on Monday, according to sources in the port of Bosasso.

No news has been heard from the missing boat, which was one of six vessels en route across the Gulf of Aden, according to Muhammad Said Kashawito, of the Bosasso-based Midnimo Radio.

Quoting sources close to brokers who arranged passage for the migrants, Kashawito said it was not clear whether the missing boat had capsized, or whether it was experiencing technical problems.

Between them, the boats were carrying at least 700 Somali and Ethiopian migrants. They had embarked from the coastal villages of Marero, Qaw and Baran, all in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland in northeastern Somalia.

Most of the passengers were "young men between the ages of 15 to 30, from southern Somalia and Ethiopia," Kashawito said. "There were some women and children, but not many."

The travellers had paid between US $30 and $50 each for the voyage to Yemen, which would be the point of departure in their search for work in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

The trip to Yemen should take about 24 hours.

"Unfortunately, something always goes wrong," Kashawito said. "Hundreds of migrants have lost their lives in similar trips in the last five years."

Unscrupulous traffickers have been known to throw passengers overboard, leaving them to drown miles from the Yemeni coast. Despite the risks, hundreds of Ethiopian migrants have been arriving at Bosasso, the commercial capital of Puntland, since late last year, according to Abdiaziz Sa'id Ga'amey, Puntland's deputy police chief.

"Between 200 to 300 migrants come to Bosasso every day," he said. Kashawito said the migrants started arriving in Bosasso in October 2005, but "their numbers increased dramatically in December and this month [January]."

The majority of migrants are from the Oromo ethnic group. They reportedly walk for days from Ethiopia to Bosasso, where they hope to catch a boat to Yemen, said Sagal Hussein, of Horn Relief, a Bosasso-based nongovernmental organisation.

"Many of those interviewed told me they were running away from what was happening in their country," she said. "Bosasso is just a transit point for them," she added. "Their ultimate destination is Yemen and the Gulf states." No one seems to know the exact number of migrants living in five makeshift camps around Bosasso because their numbers fluctuate depending on how quickly they depart for Yemen, she said.

"We estimate their numbers to be between 3,000 to 4,000," said Ga'amey, the deputy police chief. The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said the migrants "are not coming to Bosasso to ask for UNHCR's protection in Somalia," said Kitty McKinsey, the agency's regional public information officer. "They are coming to Bosasso to catch boats to leave Africa."

Source:© IRIN
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