About 20 illegal African immigrants drowned off Yemen's east coast early this week after smugglers forced a group of them overboard, government sources said yesterday. "The smugglers forced 37 African immigrants - 30 Somalis and 7 Ethiopians - to jump into the sea after they were spotted by the Yemeni coast guards," the defence ministry website www.26sep.net quoted an unidentified security official as saying. The official said 20 of the immigrants drowned and the others made it to the coast. Yemeni coast guards have arrested 183 illegal African immigrants over the last two days in the eastern coast of Shabwa, officials were quoted as saying. Ninety-three of them were Somalis, including 35 women, and 90 were Ethiopians, including 25 women. Earlier this month, the UN agency for refugees affairs said that about 5,000 African immigrants had entered Yemen since January and 170 immigrants drowned while attempting to do so.