Smugglers force 100 overboard near Yemen, UNHCR says

(CNN) - About 100 people are feared dead in the Gulf of Aden after smugglers forced them overboard off the coast of Yemen, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reported Friday.

Some 47 survivors of the incident told the UNHCR that a smuggling boat carrying about 150 people left the northern Somali port of Marera - near Bossaso - on Monday and spent three days traveling across the Gulf of Aden.

When the boat arrived just off the coast of Yemen, the smugglers forced all but a dozen of the people overboard, UNHCR reported, citing the survivors' accounts.

Twelve people "were placed in a smaller boat, while the others had to try to swim to shore," UNHCR spokesperson Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland, the UNHCR reported.