Sana'a, Yemen  - At least eight Africans drowned, and several others were injured, as a migrant-laden boat capsized at the southern Yemeni port of Aden after a French navy ship pulled the drifted boat to the port, Yemeni coast guard sources said.

The boat capsized when the passengers rushed to one side of the boat, loaded with around 100 migrants, as it was docking at the port, sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

"Rescuers pulled out 70 survivors, and eight bodies were recovered," a coast guard officer said in a telephone call.

The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said 16 passengers were injured and rushed to two hospitals in Aden. Two other people were still missing, he added.

He said four traffickers, who operated the boat, were arrested.

A French Navy ship patrolling the area rescued the boat earlier in the day, about 100 kilometres from the Aden port, after it drifted due to an engine failure.

"All the passengers were rescued and will be handed over to Yemeni coast guard officials later today," a Yemeni coast guard source told dpa after receiving reports about the French rescue operation in the Gulf of Aden.

The migrants, Somalis and Ethiopians, were headed to the Yemeni coast seeking refuge in the country on the Arabian Peninsula.

This was the third accident involving migrants off the Yemeni coast in the course of one month.

Forty-five Africans drowned after a boat carrying them from Somalia across the Gulf of Aden capsized in deep waters off Yemen on February 27.

On February 20, six African migrants drowned and 11 were reported missing and presumed dead after traffickers pushed 52 passengers overboard in deep waters off Yemen's south-eastern coast.

Many African migrants, mostly from conflict-torn Somalia, try to reach Yemen, which is seen as a gateway to Europe and the oil-rich countries of the Arabian peninsula.

Hundreds of people perish every year in the perilous exodus that takes thousands of desperate Somalis and Ethiopians to Yemen in small boats run by people-traffickers operating from Somali ports.

Since the beginning of the year, 198 boats carrying 12,500 people have reached the Yemeni coast. At least 50 people died while trying to reach Yemen by sea from Somalia during the same period.

The influx of new arrivals across the Gulf of Aden since the beginning of this year is slightly higher than during the same period in 2008.

More than 50,000 migrants, the vast majority of them Somalis, relied on traffickers for the treacherous sea crossing between Somalia and Yemen in 2008.

At least 590 people drowned and another 359 were reported missing last year as result of crossings gone wrong. In many cases, the traffickers threw the migrants overboard when problems arose. (dpa)