At least 54 migrants have died after a boat carrying about 150 people sank off the coast of Yemen in bad weather. Dozens of other migrants are still missing.

The boat capsized off Ahwar district in Yemen's southern Arabian Sea province of Abyan, security sources said.

Abdul Qadir Baymiel, a health official in the province, said 10 of the 150 or so people on board had been rescued - nine Ethiopians and one Yemeni national - but dozens remained missing. Two medics said rescuers were still searching for survivors.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says Yemen continues to see a significant increase in the flow of irregular migrants arriving from Africa.

Migrants cross the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which separates Djibouti and Eritrea from Yemen, every year on flimsy boats hoping to reach Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries and find work. 

The IOM describes the route from the Horn of Africa to Yemen as "one of the busiest and most dangerous mixed migration routes in the world". The organisation said it recorded the arrival of more than 60,000 migrants in Yemen last year. | BGNES