A devastating maritime disaster has left at least two people dead and 186 missing after four boats carrying migrants capsized off the coasts of Yemen and Djibouti, the United Nations migration agency reported on Friday.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), two of the boats sank in Yemeni waters late Thursday. While two crew members were rescued, 181 migrants and five Yemeni crew members remain unaccounted for. The IOM chief of mission in Yemen, Abdusattor Esoev, stated that the majority of those aboard were Ethiopian migrants, including 57 women. “We are working with authorities to see if we can find any survivors, but I’m afraid we may not have any,” Esoev told AFP.
Meanwhile, two additional boats sank off the coast of Djibouti around the same time. Authorities recovered the bodies of two migrants, while all others on board were successfully rescued.
Perilous Journeys Across the Red Sea
Despite Yemen’s nearly decade-long civil war, the country remains a key transit route for migrants and refugees from East Africa and the Horn of Africa seeking work in Gulf states. Smugglers frequently transport migrants in overcrowded, unsafe boats across the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
The number of migrants reaching Yemen surged to 97,200 in 2023—triple the figure from 2021—before declining to just under 61,000 last year due to increased maritime patrols, according to IOM data. However, the perilous journey continues to claim lives. The IOM reported 558 deaths along this migration route in 2024 alone, with at least 20 Ethiopian migrants perishing in a boat accident off Yemen’s coast in January. Over the past decade, at least 2,082 people have gone missing along this route, with 693 confirmed drownings.
A Growing Humanitarian Crisis
Currently, an estimated 380,000 migrants are in Yemen, many facing dire conditions. The ongoing crisis highlights the urgent need for international intervention to address the dangers faced by migrants and to combat human trafficking networks that exploit vulnerable individuals seeking a better future.
Search and rescue operations are ongoing, but hopes for finding more survivors are fading. Authorities and humanitarian agencies continue to monitor the situation as efforts to prevent further tragedies at sea intensify.
Source:https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/7/two-dead-186-missing-after-four-boats-sink-off-yemen-and-djibouti-un
