Maputo: Mozambican police say
50 illegal Somali migrants and a Tanzanian captain died after
a ship sank off the coast of northern Mozambique.
Police spokesman Pedro Cossa today said that the boat
full of illegal migrants was travelling to South Africa from
Somalia when it sank on Sunday.
Mozambican marines sent the 89 Somali and Ethiopian
survivors to a refugee camp which holds about 3,000 illegal
migrants.
Cossa says he does not know the cause of the
shipwreck. South Africa, one of the continent's biggest
economies, has become a popular destination for Africans
fleeing economic and political crisis in their homelands.
Hundreds of other migrants also die each year while attempting
to cross from the Horn of Africa to the Middle East.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, February 16, 2011, 23:50