More Than A Dozen Passengers Die During U.S. Navy Rescue In Gulf of Aden.

Visits: 1822
(Rating 0.0/5 Stars) Total Votes: 0
0 0
Share via Social Media

More Than A Dozen Passengers Die During U.S. Navy Rescue In Gulf of Aden.

Washington, DC, United States (AHN) - More than a dozen passengers on a stranded skiff died Monday while being rescued by multi-national personnel on an American destroyer in the Gulf of Aden.

Share

Washington, DC, United States (AHN) - More than a dozen passengers on a stranded skiff died Monday while being rescued by multi-national personnel on an American destroyer in the Gulf of Aden.

According to the U.S. Navy, a small boat was spotted on the south coast of the Arabian Peninsula on Sunday.

About 75 Ethiopians and 10 Somalis were aboard the vessel, which was adrift due to an engine problem.

Crew members of the USS Winston Churchill, a guided-missile destroyer conducting anti-piracy operations in the area, boarded the skiff and provided passengers with food and water. Crew also began towing the vessel away from the maritime traffic corridor and toward the coast of Somalia using a rigid-hulled inflatable boat.

The next day, 13 people drowned as crew members were handing out water and food to the passengers. The Navy said the small boat capsized when passengers scrambled to one side to receive supplies. The Churchill immediately conducted a search and rescue operation, but only 61 passengers were rescued and eight remain missing.

"The passengers rushed to one side and the skiff began taking on water... leaving all 85 passengers in the water," the Navy said in a statement.

Officials had no explanation about the status of two more passengers. The accident is under investigation.

Piracy off the Somali Basin and the Gulf of Aden, a region plagued by poverty and political instability, has grown into an urgent international concern. The passengers in the skiff were traveling from Somalia to Yemen, a spokesman from the Combined Maritime Forces, a multi-national anti-piracy task force, told the Navy Times.

Rohosafi,
English News Staff
Email: Englishnews@live.com