Khartuom: A ship carrying African migrants bound for Saudi Arabia has caught fire and 197 people are feared drowned off Sudan's northeastern coast, a semiofficial news agency reported on Tuesday.
The Sudan Media Center said three of the migrants were rescued. The ship had launched from the Red Sea State and sailed for four hours in Sudanese territorial waters before the blaze began, according to the news agency.
Local authorities were still searching for possible survivors, it said.
The report says the owners of the boat, all Yemenis, have been arrested, although it gave no more details about them.
A second attempt to smuggle 247 migrants, mostly from Chad, Nigeria, Somalia and Eritrea, also was uncovered in the same state, the report said, without elaborating.
Sudan has experienced several other incidents of illegal migrants drowning off the coast on their way to nearby countries in past years. Thousands of African migrants, especially Eritreans and Ethiopians, risk the dangerous route to escape conflicts in their countries and seek better lives in oil-rich states.
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