Migrant boat sinks off Yemen coast, killing at least 39 people, U.N. immigration agency says

A boat carrying 260 migrants sank off Yemen's coast on Monday, killing at least 39 people and leaving 150 others missing, the United Nations' international migration agency said Tuesday.

The International Organisation for Migration said in a message posted on social media that 71 people had survived the sinking. 

The nationalities of the migrants on the boat was not clear. Each year many tens of thousands of migrants from the Horn of Africa set off across the Red Sea in a bid to reach the oil-rich Gulf, escaping conflict, natural disasters or poor economic prospects.