Search operation launched as bodies found scattered across a wide area on the coast of the Yemeni province of Abyan

A boat capsized on Sunday in waters off Yemen’s coast leaving 68 African migrants dead and 74 others missing, the United Nations’ migration agency said.

The vessel, with 154 Ethiopian migrants on board, sank in the Gulf of Aden off the southern Yemeni province of Abyan early Sunday, Abdusattor Esoev, head of the International Organization for Migration in Yemen told Associated Press.

He said the bodies of 54 migrants washed ashore in the district of Khanfar, and 14 others were found dead and taken to a hospital morgue in Zinjibar, the provincial capital of Abyan on Yemen’s southern coast.

Only 12 migrants survived the shipwreck, and the rest were missing and presumed dead, Esoev said.