A passenger ship carrying more than 60 people, including women and children, sank while sailing to Socotra island in the Indian Ocean from Hadramout province in mainland Yemen, shipping sources said on Wednesday.

They said rescue teams managed to pull at least five passengers from the vessel, which was sailing from the Hadramout provincial capital, Al Mukalla, when it sank northwest of Socotra with 64 people on-board. The fate of the rest of the passengers, or what caused the ship to sink, was not known.

The Yemeni fisheries minister, Fahad Kaffen, appealed to the Saudi-led Arab alliance, which maintains a naval presence in the area, to help with search and rescue efforts. The boat went missing five days ago, said Kaffen. Socotra lies in the Indian Ocean closer to the coast of Somalia than the Yemeni mainland.

The government’s sabanew.net reported that two ships, one Austrian and one Australian, had rescued two of those on-board.

It did not specify whether the vessels were merchant ships or part of an international flotilla that has been fighting piracy off the Somali coast.

Socotra and Hadramout province are under the control of the Yemeni government of President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, which is locked in a war with Iran-aligned Al Houthis who control most of northern Yemen.

The Aden Al Ghad news website quoted a source in the coast guard as saying they had received a notice from authorities in Hadramout on Tuesday night saying contact with the ship had been lost several hours after it sailed from Al Mukalla.

The website said the ship was believed to have suffered some kind of accident and that the fate of the passengers was still not clear.

Through the devastating conflict that has pitted forces loyal to Hadi against Shiite rebels and their allies over the past few years, Socotra has remained loyal to his internationally-recognised government throughout

source : gulfnews