Dozens missing as Cyclone Mekenu hits Yemeni island

YEMEN: Yemen declared a state of emergency on Socotra on Thursday after a tropical storm flooded several villages and capsized boats on the island and left at least 17 people missing, government officials said.

Some of the missing were crew on board a boat that sunk when the storm hit the island in the Arabian Sea, said a fisheries ministry official.

The Yemeni Minister of Fisheries, Fahd Kafain, said that the number of missing people in the Socotra archipelago rose to 17 as a result of the sinking of two ships and the displacement of three cars due to the floods caused by Mekenu.

Socotra, which lies between the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, has been largely untouched by a three-year-old war in Yemen and is under the control of the internationally recognized government.

The island “requires urgent aid to help people stranded in their villages or those who reside in the mountains”, government spokesman Rajeh Badi told the state news agency SABA.

He said 17 people were missing after two boats capsized and three cars were washed away by floods. Another official said more than 200 families had been evacuated from their villages.

The storm is expected to hit southern Yemen and the coast of neighboring Oman on Thursday, Oman’s state news agency reported. It said Omani authorities evacuated hospitals in Dhofar province and other areas bordering Yemen.

A tropical cyclone hit the Horn of Africa on Wednesday, killing more than 50 people in Somaliland.

Some residents carrying children tried to escape through the flooded streets.

Authorities called on humanitarian organizations to help, according to state-run news agency Saba.