BRUSSELS, Nov 6 - The EU's anti-piracy mission said it had picked up a group of Somalis abandoned in the Gulf of Aden by human traffickers and on Thursday handed them over to the UN refugee agency in Djibouti.

The 43 Somalis, including nine women and seven children, were left to fend for themselves after the small boat they were in broke down, the European Union mission said in a statement. The traffickers fled in another vessel.

After being abandoned, the Somalis drifted for two days with almost no water or food before a helicopter from the EU's Atalanta mission, spotted them.

The Dutch frigate Evertsen picked them up on October 24 and they were handed over to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on Thursday.