31 Somalis killed in raid off Yemen coast-source

Thirty-one Somali refugees were killed off the coast of Yemen late yesterday when a helicopter attacked the boat they were travelling in, a local coast guard in the Houthi-controlled Al-Hudaydah area said.

Coastguard Mohamed Al-Alay told Reuters the refugees, carrying official UNHCR documents, were on their way from Yemen to Sudan when they were attacked by an Apache helicopter near the Bab Al-Mandeb strait.

A sailor who had been operating the boat, Ibrahim Ali Zeyad, said 80 refugees had been rescued after the incident.

Read: At least 110 dead due to famine in 48 hours in Somalia

It was not immediately clear who carried out the attack.

Al-Hudaydah on the Red Sea is controlled by Houthi fighters who in 2014 overran Yemen’s capital Sana’a and forced the Saudi-backed government of President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi to flee into exile.

A Saudi-led coalition was formed in 2015 to fight the Houthis and troops loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh who have fired missiles into neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

The Bab Al-Mandeb is a strategic waterway at the foot of the Red Sea through which nearly four million barrels of oil are shipped daily to Europe, the United States and Asia.