Over 130 Migrants Killed, Including Children, as Boat from Djibouti to Yemen Capsizes

The U.N. International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Sunday that at least 139 migrants were killed when a boat sailing from Djibouti to Yemen capsized. At least 15 of the confirmed dead were children, and another 84 people are missing. The boat departed from Djibouti on the night of October 8, overloaded with 305 people. This particular voyage was headed from Djibouti to Yemen, although lately there has been considerable traffic in the other direction, as Yemenis flee across the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to seek safety from renewed fighting between Yemen’s government and the Iran-backed Houthi insurgency. The IOM said that, even with such dangerous conditions in Yemen, a huge number of migrants still hope to cross from Djibouti, hoping to find their way into Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries that are more hospitable. The Bab el-Mandeb crossing is considered dangerous even when a battle is not raging for control of the strait, although the route is not long — the strait is only about 12.5 miles wide at its narrowest point. The boat that sank last Thursday night overturned north of Djibouti’s port town of Obock. The reason for the disaster remains unclear, but the human toll was all too easy to measure in bodies and items of clothing washing ashore. As of Sunday, IOM said 139 bodies were recovered, including nine girls and six boys, making it one of the deadliest disasters to have occurred along the Djibouti-Yemen migration route. Over 900 migrants died while trying to make the same passage in 2025, while roughly half a million migrants survived the journey. Most of the migrants are from Ethiopia and Somalia. According to IOM, all of the survivors from the capsizing were Ethiopians. The U.N. agency said there has been an uptick in Ethiopian migration over the past few months due to drought conditions and renewed fighting between the central government and Tigrayan insurgents. IOM Chief of Mission in Djibouti Alexandre Coissac said the loss of life was “devastating” and a “stark reminder of the dangers faced by migrants along this migration corridor as they seek economic opportunities.” Coissac said it was difficult to establish an exact casualty count after such disasters, because the migrants bury some of the bodies themselves, without identifying the dead. He said interviewing the survivors was difficult because they were in “a state of shock.” “What is terrible is that they were buried with no names, in a common grave, like in a war situation. They all have a mother, a father, and we may never learn what happened,” he said. “The local authorities did their best, but they were overwhelmed with all the bodies that kept coming at once towards the shore,” he added. “Poverty, insecurity, and the growing impacts of climate change drive many to undertake this journey, despite mounting instability across the Middle East,” IOM said. “We cannot keep treating these deaths as normal,” said IOM Director General Amy Pope. “No one gets into a boat like that unless they believe there is no other safe way. I am asking governments and donors to act before the next boat goes down.”