Rise in refugees risking lives to flee Horn of Africa: UN

The first few months of 2008 have seen a dramatic risein the number of refugees fleeing the Horn of Africa and making an often deadly journey across awaterway into Yemen, a United Nations agency says.

Refugees arrive on a wide stretch of Yemeni shores by the overcrowded boatful, brought there by smugglers across the Gulf of Aden a waterway between Somalia and Yemen.

By the beginning of March, the number of refugees arriving in Yementopped 8,700, nearly triple the number in the first two months of 2007, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said.

UN officials say most of the refugees come from Somalia, a country wracked by povertyafter nearly two decades of conflict.

"The people, they are increasing. The fighting is taking more space in Mogadishu and Somalia, especially in the north region," said Akram Abdullah, a physician with Doctors without Borders, who helps care for those arriving on the beaches.

Last year, more than 27,000 refugees made the treacherous journey across theGulf of Adento Yemen, the UNHCR says. That number is expected to be much higher this year.

Duringthe one- to three-daytrip across the gulf, hundreds die as smugglers toss them into the waters individually or sometimes even by the boatful in an attempt to avoid detection by officials.

Since the start of the year, UNHCR estimates more than 400 have either drowned or are missing and presumed to have drowned.

Those who do survive often arrive on Yemeni shores in the dead of night, dripping wet and exhausted after days at sea without food or wateraboard boats so crowded they stand in their own feces.

To deal with the rise, aid agencies rushed to open another reception centre in Ahwar, east of Muqaybirah, aheadof schedule on Monday after a boatload of 80 people arrived the day before.

At that centre, Sueilha, a20-year-old mother,told CBC News of how her six-month-old, Mohammed, was taken from her and thrown overboardwhen she refused to leave a smuggler's boat without him in her arms.

"When she landed, her baby was thrown into the sea," a translator explains. "So another [person] came from the other side and saved the baby."

UN officials say the armed smugglers often brutally beat their passengers, citingone case of a persondying after jumping ship due to the severe trauma and several arriving in Yemen with stab wounds.

Hoped to track her mother

A16-year-old girl from Somali's capital of Mogadishuexperienced such violence on her journey.

"They were beating [us] with clubs while on the boats," Deka Ibrahim said through a translator.

She boarded the ship in hopes of tracking down her mother who fled before her, and went on to Saudia Arabia to look for work.

Part of the problem, the UN agency says,is smugglers are searching out new locations to drop their human cargo, increasingly taking people across from the nearby country of Djibouti.

Yemen, a poor country ill-equipped to deal with the refugee influx, has begun to crack down on the smugglers by sending out the navy and coast-guard forces to arrest them.