Boat carrying migrants capsizes off Yemeni coast; at least 54 dead, dozens missing
Aden: At least 54 migrants are reported to have died as a boat sank off the coast of Yemen due to bad weather on Sunday, with health officials stating that dozen others who were in the boat are missing.
According to a report by Reuters, security sources have said that the boat carrying around 150 people capsized in the Arabian Sea off the Ahwar coast in the southern Abyan province of Yemen.
A provincial health officer Abdul Qadir Bajameel has said that 10 people in the boat, including nine Ethiopians and one Yemeni, were rescued, but dozens of people are still missing. Two medics have said that rescuers were looking for survivors.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has said that Yemen has been experiencing a significant increase in the number of irregular migrants from Africa. Migrants hoping to reach Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries in search of jobs are known to cross the Bab al-Mandab strait separating Djibouti and Eritrea to enter Yemen each year.
The IOM has called the route from the Horn of Africa to Yemen as one of the busiest and most dangerous mixed migration routes in the world. It added that, in 2024, more than 60,000 migrants were recorded to have arrived in Yemen.
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US VP JD Vance says Lebanon not part of ceasefire, calls it ‘misunderstanding’
Budapest/Washington: US Vice President J D Vance has said that Lebanon was never included in the ceasefire understanding with Iran, describing the confusion as a “legitimate misunderstanding”.
Speaking to reporters before departing from Hungary, Vance said, “I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn’t. We never made that promise.”
He stressed that the United States had not included Lebanon in the scope of the ceasefire at any stage.
His remarks come amid continued Israeli strikes in Lebanon, where more than 200 people were reported killed, even as ceasefire talks between Iran and the US move forward.
Vance said Israel had “offered … to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon because they want to make sure that our negotiation is successful”.
He warned that if Iran allows the situation in Lebanon to affect the negotiations, it could derail the talks.
“If Iran wants to let this negotiation fall apart in a conflict where they were getting hammered over Lebanon, which has nothing to do with them and which the United States never once said was part of the ceasefire, that’s ultimately their choice,” he said.
