At least 54 migrants died when a boat carrying around 150 people sank off Yemen’s coast in bad weather on Sunday, with dozens still unaccounted for, health officials said.

The boat capsized off the Ahwar district in Yemen’s southern Abyan province on the Arabian Sea, security sources said.

Abdul Qadir Bajameel, a provincial health official, said 10 of the around 150 people on board were rescued – nine Ethiopians and one Yemeni – but dozens remained missing. Two medics said rescuers were still looking for survivors.

The International Organization for Migration says Yemen continues to witness a significant increase in the influx of irregular migrants arriving from Africa.

Migrants cross the Bab al-Mandab strait that separates Djibouti and Eritrea from Yemen each year on flimsy boats in the hope of reaching Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries in the hope of finding work.

The IOM describes the route from the Horn of Africa to Yemen as “one of the world’s busiest and most perilous mixed migration routes”. It said it recorded the arrival of more than 60,000 migrants in Yemen last year.