60 African refugees found dead on beach

Sixty corpses of would-be refugees from Somalia and Ethiopia were found on a beach in Yemen over the weekend after smugglers forced many of them overboard, an international aid agency said yesterday.

Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said the latest victims on the notoriously perilous smuggling route had came across the Gulf of Aden from the Somali port city of Bosasso, fleeing war and poverty at home.

In one of two incidents that caused the deaths, smugglers tipped the refugees into the sea at night after noticing lights on land and fearing they would be spotted by the coastguard, MSF quoted survivors as saying.