GENEVA - A total of 46 migrants had drowned in the early hours of Wednesday trying to cross from the Horn of Africa to find employment in Yemen and the Gulf, the Geneva-based UN migration agency IOM said Wednesday.

In a statement issued Wednesday evening, IOM said that its staff were on the scene providing assistance to the traumatized survivors.

IOM staff reported that among the dead, 37 were men and nine were women. A further 16 remain missing, presumed dead.

According to the IOM, at least 100 migrants crammed onto a smuggler's boat that left the port of Bossaso, Somalia on June 5. After traveling through the night across the short but treacherous Gulf of Aden, their boat approached the shore at 5 a.m. Wednesday and then they were pitched headlong into the rough seas by high waves.