A boat has capsized off Yemen’s coast leaving 68 African migrants dead and 74 others missing, the UN’s migration agency said.

Axar.az informs, citing Guardian, the vessel, with 154 Ethiopian migrants onboard, sank in the Gulf of Aden off the southern Yemeni province of Abyan early on Sunday, the head of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Yemen said.

Only 12 survived the shipwreck, and the rest were missing and presumed dead.

Despite more than a decade of civil war , Yemen is a major route for people from east Africa and the Horn of Africa trying to reach the Gulf Arab countries for work. Migrants are taken by smugglers on often dangerous, overcrowded boats across the Red Sea or Gulf of Aden.

Hundreds of people have died or gone missing in shipwrecks off Yemen in recent months, including in March when two migrants died and 186 others were missing after four boats capsized off Yemen and Djibouti , according to the IOM.