The coastguard reported on Friday that authorities in Comoros arrested a suspected people smuggler for an incident where traffickers intentionally capsized a vessel last week and killed at least 25 people aboard.

Fahmy Husny el-nassib is the head of the Comorian Coastguard. The boat overturned during the night of October 30th, while traveling 70 km (43 miles) from the Comorian Island of Anjouan, to Mayotte, a French Overseas Department in the Indian Ocean.

El-nassib claimed that the vessel's engine had failed, but it was not immediately known why the traffickers capsized the boat.

El-nassib said that the prosecutor in Mutsamudu, (the biggest city on Anjouan), had informed him yesterday that a smuggler was indeed arrested.

According to a security source, the man arrested was believed to be the leader of a smuggler's network and owner of the boat.

Requests for comments were not answered by the police or prosecutor's offices.

The United Nations Migration agency reported previously that the incident occurred in the evening of November 1.

In recent decades, thousands of people attempted to cross to Mayotte. This island has a better standard of living with access to the French social welfare system.

(source: Reuters)