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Article snippet: KHOUBIA, Yemen — For more than 24 hours, they were forced to sit on the floor of a plastic boat as it lurched across the sea, forbidden to get up even if they needed to urinate or vomit. The dates they had brought to eat on the journey were taken. Near dawn, when their smuggler thought he saw the lights of a patrol boat, they were ordered to jump overboard. The next day a second migrant boat came, packed with even more people — and this time their smugglers pointed guns at them and ordered them into the inky waters as well. On both boats, they were mostly teenagers. Natives of Ethiopia, they had boarded from the Somali coast — pushed by what they described as a combination of poverty, ambition and political repression back home, and pulled by the mirage of work in the countries of the Persian Gulf. The International Organization for Migration says several of those coming to Yemen are from the Oromia region, Ethiopia’s largest, which has been wracked by antigovernment protests for over a year. Those who reached this desolate stretch of beach along the Arabian Sea, in Shabwa Province, last week stumbled into an empty mosque. A United Nations aid worker who found them there said some were ailing from severe diarrhea and aching limbs. Of the 280 people who made the crossing on these two boats, 54 have been confirmed dead or missing, according to the agency. “Before boarding the boat, I was dreaming of making a good life outside my country,” said Saeed Shiekh Sayado, ... Link to the full article to read more