At least 49 killed as boat carrying migrants sinks off Yemen, U.N. says [Video]

A boat carrying 260 migrants sank off Yemen’s coast on Monday, killing at least 49 people and leaving 140 others missing, the United Nations’ international migration agency said Tuesday.

Seventy-one people had survived the sinking, according to a news release from the International Organisation for Migration. Most required minor care while eight were transferred to a hospital for medical treatment, the group said. Six children were among the survivors rescued, while another six children and 31 women were among the dead. Search and rescue missions were ongoing, but the IOM noted that a shortage of patrol boats, made worse by current conflict, posed challenges to their operations.

The boat was carrying 115 Somali nationals and 145 Ethiopians, according to the IOM.

Each year many tens of thousands of migrants from the Horn of Africa set off across the Red Sea in a bid to reach the oil-rich Gulf, escaping conflict, …