Dubai: Forty-two Somali refugees have been killed in a helicopter gunship attack on their boat off Yemen, the United Nations refugee agency says.
The UN and Somalia have called on the Saudi-led coalition fighting in the country to investigate the attack on Thursday.
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Malnutrition grows in war-ravaged Yemen
More than half of Yemen's people suffer from malnutrition, according to the United Nations, as the ongoing civil war disrupts the country's main industry, fishing.
Mohamed al-Alay, a coastguard officer in the Hodeida area, which is controlled by Yemen's rebel Houthi movement, said the refugees, carrying official UNHCR documents, were going to Sudan from Yemen when an Apache helicopter attacked near the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait.
The area is part of a broad front where forces loyal to Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, backed by a Saudi-led coalition of Arab states, are fighting the Iran-allied Houthi movement which controls most of north and western Yemen.
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It was not immediately clear who carried out the attack.
The UNHCR said on its Twitter account that 42 refugees were reported dead and 39 wounded were being treated in hospitals. The International Committee of the Red Cross earlier said 33 were dead, 29 wounded and other passengers were missing.
"We do not know who carried it out but survivors said they came under attack from another boat at 9pm, the crew used lights and shouted to signal this is a civilian boat," ICRC spokeswoman Iolanda Jaquemet said.
"Nevertheless, it did not have any effect and a helicopter joined in the attack," she said.
The Saudi-led coalition said it did not conduct any operations or have any engagement on Thursday in the Hodeida area where the attack took place.
The Saudi-led coalition was formed in 2015 to fight the Houthis and troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The Bab al-Mandab is a strategic waterway in the Red Sea through which nearly four million barrels of oil are shipped daily.
Reuters