A small tugboat at the pier in the port of Obock, Djibouti, on July 5, 2008. The boat carrying migrants capsized near Guhere, north of Obock. [file photo] (Photo: U.S. Navy, MC1 Robert Ressler, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
At least 139 migrants, including 15 children, died when a boat bound for Yemen capsized off Djibouti, the UN migration agency said on Sunday, as 84 people remained missing.
The agency first put the toll at 109 dead and more than 116 missing, then raised it later on Sunday.
The International Organization for Migration said survivors told its staff that the boat overturned near Guhere, north of the port town of Obock, during the night of October 8 to the early hours of October 9. The coast there faces the Gulf of Aden and the Bab el-Mandeb strait.
More than 80 people survived, and all of them are Ethiopian nationals, the agency said. BBC Amharic noted that the agency’s statement did not say clearly which countries the dead came from. Of the first 109 bodies recovered, 52 were men, 42 were women and 15 were children, according to BBC Amharic.
The reports differ on how many people were on board. The agency’s statement put the number on board at 305. AFP, citing survivors, said the boat was carrying 350 people, and Al Jazeera said more than 300.
“Our teams are on the ground alongside local authorities to provide emergency assistance,” Alexandre Coissac, the agency’s chief of mission in Djibouti, said, according to Al Jazeera. He called the deaths a “devastating loss of life” and said: “This tragedy is a stark reminder of the dangers faced by migrants along this migration corridor as they seek economic opportunities.”
The toll includes only those buried by authorities in Djibouti, Coissac told the Associated Press, as cited by Al Jazeera. He said others have been buried by the migrants themselves and will not be added to the official count until authorities can verify the bodies.
Djiboutian authorities are searching for the missing, but the agency said the outlook for them is grim, BBC Amharic reported. The agency said it is assisting 64 survivors at its migrant response center in Obock with health care, psychological support, temporary shelter, food and help contacting their families, and that local authorities are arranging burials for the dead.
Reuters asked the Ethiopian Gov’t spokesperson and Djiboutian authorities for comment, BBC Amharic reported. By Sunday evening, Mereja had not found a public statement on the deaths from the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Ethiopian Embassy in Djibouti.
Ameyu Etana, a journalist with BBC Africa, wrote on X that the news was sad and noted that, according to the agency, “In the past four weeks alone, 20,000 Ethiopian migrants crossed to Djibouti.” The agency said it had recorded more than 20,000 incoming movements to Djibouti from Ethiopia since September 10, Al Jazeera reported.
Those weeks match the period of renewed war in northern Ethiopia, which began in late September, and the return of fighting in Yemen between government forces and the Houthis. The agency did not link the rise in movements to either war. It said migrants take the route to escape insecurity and the growing effects of climate change, and to look for work and a stable life in the Gulf countries.
The crossing to Yemen is one of the most dangerous migration routes in the world. At its narrowest point, the Bab el-Mandeb is about 20 kilometers wide between Djibouti and Yemen, Al Jazeera said. Last year, more than half a million people tried to move along the route into Yemen, and at least 900 people died or went missing, according to the agency, as cited by Al Jazeera. BBC Amharic said the number of migrants using the route rose by 18 percent in 2025, and the agency said a shipwreck in March 2026 left nine people dead and 45 missing. Once in Yemen, migrants face violence, arbitrary detention, trafficking and exploitation, the agency said.
Djibouti is also receiving people from the other direction. BBC Amharic reported that the agency described the fighting in Yemen as alarming and said the number of people displaced there had risen from 76,000 to 200,000 since mid-September. Several thousand people have fled from Yemen to Djibouti because of the renewed conflict, Al Jazeera reported.
The war on the other side of the strait has also spread to Saudi Arabia. On Saturday, an attack on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh killed at least 12 people and injured 309, BBC Amharic reported, citing Saudi civil aviation authorities. The dead were four Saudis, two Bangladeshis, and one person each from the United States, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Sudan and Egypt. The Saudi-led coalition blamed the Houthis, called the attack a “war crime” and promised a response. The Houthis had not commented on Saturday’s attack, BBC Amharic said, and it was the deadliest attack on Saudi Arabia since May 2015. On Saturday, Mereja reported that Yemeni forces had advanced around Bab el-Mandeb but had not secured the strait.
Mohammed Amin, a Yemeni writer who says he writes about politics, society and humanity, wrote on X in Arabic that while the region is busy with military operations and strategic sea lanes, the disaster “reveals another face of the sea.” He wrote that the story is “not about commercial ships or oil tankers, but about human beings who did not reach their destination.” In a second post, he said the tragedy raises questions about whether states and organizations can protect migrants on dangerous routes, and that it should not be reduced to the military conflict, because “the causes of the sinking and responsibility for it need an independent investigation.”
The agency announced the deaths on X and said it is assisting survivors as search and rescue operations continue. Al-Watan, a Bahraini daily newspaper, reported the deaths on X under the words “All of them carry Ethiopian nationality,” although the agency said only that the survivors were Ethiopian.
In its report on human trafficking released this week, the US State Department kept Ethiopia on its Tier 2 list, which Mereja reported on Friday.
Sources:
- International Organization for Migration
- BBC Amharic (shipwreck)
- Al Jazeera
- AFP on X
- AFP on X (updated toll)
- IOM on X
- IOM on X (updated toll)
- Ameyu Etana on X
- Mohammed Amin on X (first post)
- Mohammed Amin on X (second post)
- Al-Watan on X
- BBC Amharic (Riyadh airport attack)
- Mereja (Bab el-Mandeb)
- Mereja (US trafficking report)