200 migrants feared dead in boat fire off Sudan

Boat carrying migrants to Saudi Arabia reported to have sunk, with three people rescued Nearly 200 African migrants are feared drowned after a boat carrying them to Saudi Arabia caught fire off Sudan’s north-eastern coast, a semi-official Sudanese news agency has reported. The Sudan Media Centre said three migrants were rescued. The boat had set off from Red Sea state in Sudan and sailed for four hours in Sudanese territorial waters before the blaze broke out, according to the news agency. Local authorities were still searching for possible survivors, it said. The report could not be independently confirmed. The report said the owners of the boat, all Yemenis, were arrested after it sank south of Sawaken, at the southern tip of Red Sea state. A second attempt to smuggle 247 migrants, mostly from Chad, Nigeria, Somalia and Eritrea, was uncovered in the same state, the report said, without elaborating. Several other incidents of illegal migrants drowning off the coast of Sudan on their way to nearby countries have been reported in past years, but the numbers have generally been smaller.. Early in June, a ship carrying 850 migrants fleeing the conflict with Libya capsized off Tunisia , and 150 of the passengers drowned. Sudan Africa Saudi Arabia Middle East Refugees guardian.co.uk

Posted by on July 6, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.