20100208
press tv

At least 10 migrants have drowned and 126 have been rescued by Somali fishermen from the Gulf of Aden after smugglers threw them overboard.

The boat was sailing from Somalia to Yemen when it encountered mechanical problems.

The smugglers then forced the 136 migrants, mostly from Somalia and Ethiopia, overboard, the Press TV correspondent reported on Monday.

According to the residents of a northern Somali town, 126 survivors were rescued while the dead bodies of ten other migrants were found floating near the shore.

The boat set sail last week from the Puntland port city of Bossasso, a famous den for illegal smugglers, which lies some 200 km west of Las Qoray, but later started drifting.

The UN estimates that thousands of African migrants, mostly from the Horn of Africa, who are trying to escape the escalating violence and poverty, risk the high seas in search of a better life.

Over 74,000 people have taken the dangerous sea voyage to Yemen in 2009, the UN refugee agency said in a report.