Photo credits: Ggia via Wikimedia Commons

It was not the war in Yemen that killed them.

In the course of two days, off the coast of Shabwah, a governorate of Yemen, human smugglers threw into the Arabian Sea more than 280 African immigrants on August 9 and 10, with more than 50 drowned already, according to a report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

More than 30 migrants are still missing.

Those hundreds of migrants boarded a boat to escape Yemen, where a two-year old civil war continues to devastate life and properties in  this Arab country. According to UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, they wanted to sail to countries in the Gulf, reported TribLIVE.

On August 9, a smuggler threw into the same sea as many as 120 Ethiopian and Somali migrants, said the UN migration agency. Quoting the agency, they were all “deliberately drowned.”

The next day, August 9, the same thing happened to 160 Ethiopian migrants.  They fell into the same waters of Shabwah, albeit near the shore.

Prior to these forced drownings, survivors said that while sailing, they experienced cruelty at the hands of the traffickers. For one, they forced them to squat down on the boat to accommodate more people that they could smuggle.

For the entire duration of the trip, which takes a whole day and could even stretch up to 36 hours, the traffickers didn’t permit them to move. When it was time to relieve themselves, the migrants had no choice but to urinate on themselves.

Laurent de Boeck, the IOM Yemen Chief of Mission, said that survivors told his colleagues that when the smuggler spotted some people near the coast, he perceived them to be “authority types.” That was when he started pushing them off the boat.

William Lacy Swing, IOM Director General, condemned the forced drownings. “The death toll is still unknown,” he said.

He vowed a better future in honor of the migrants who died.

Swing said,  “I am making a promise to them that IOM will not forget them and will continue to fight to protect the rights and dignity of future generations of migrants.”