Up to 50 refugees ‘deliberately drowned’ off Yemen

Up to 50 refugees and migrants from Somalia and Ethiopia were “deliberately drowned” when a smuggler forced them into the sea off Yemen’s coast, the UN migration agency said on Wednesday, calling the drownings “shocking and inhumane”.

International Organization for Migration (IOM) staffers found the shallow graves of 29 of the refugees and migrants on a beach in Shabwa, Yemen during a routine patrol, the agency’s statement said.

At least 22 people are still missing, the IOM said. The passengers’ average age was 16.

Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall reports.