NAIROBI: At least 139 migrants died, including 15 children, and 84 went missing when an overcrowded boat sank while heading from Djibouti to Yemen, a UN agency said Sunday.
The vessel was carrying 305 people, most of them Ethiopian, when it capsized north of the Djibouti town of Obock on the night of October 8-9, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a statement.
"Survivors told me that the boat started to sink backwards as soon as they got in it," Alexandre Coissac, IOM chief of mission in Djibouti, told AFP.
"This is a devastating loss of life," he said earlier in the statement.
"Our thoughts are with the survivors and the families who have lost loved ones or remain without news of their relatives."
The IOM gave an initial toll of 109 dead and 116 missing, and revised it to 139 dead and 84 missing in a later statement after more bodies were recovered.
Coissac said IOM teams were on the ground alongside Djiboutian authorities to provide emergency aid.
"This tragedy is a stark reminder of the dangers faced by migrants along this migration corridor as they seek economic opportunities" by trying to cross the Bab al-Mandab Strait to Yemen and then reach Gulf countries, he said.
Coissac said he had spoken to one survivor of the wreck who came from the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, where rebels are battling the federal government in a recent flare-up of violence.
Perilous Yemen route
Among the 109 bodies earlier recovered were 52 men, 42 women and 15 children -- nine girls and six boys -- the initial statement said.
Eighty-two people survived the shipwreck, all Ethiopian nationals, according to the updated toll.
"Poverty, insecurity and the growing impacts of climate change drive many to undertake this journey, despite mounting instability across the Middle East," the IOM said.
The IOM said it was assisting 64 survivors at a migrant centre in Obock.
"Djiboutian authorities are continuing search and rescue operations as fears grow for those still missing."
It called it "one of the deadliest shipwrecks recorded" on the route.
IOM spokesman Kennedy Omondi Okoth told AFP this week that 178,000 people had arrived in Djibouti from Ethiopia from January to October this year.
Since September 10, the IOM detected more than 20,000 crossings to Djibouti from Ethiopia, despite a surge in conflict in Yemen.
The country is stricken by fighting between the Saudi-backed government and Tehran-backed Houthi rebels, who have joined in the regional conflict involving the US and its allies against Iran.
Coissac said 150 of the people on the boat that sank off Djibouti had previously been turned back from Yemen but had attempted the crossing again.
Ethiopian, Somalian migrants
In 2025, more than 900 migrants died or went missing along the sea route to Yemen and the number attempting the journey increased by 18 percent, the IOM said.
A shipwreck in March 2026 left nine people dead and 45 missing.
Okoth said most of the people attempting the journey were from Ethiopia or Somalia.
He said many of them were ending up "stranded" in Djibouti.
"No one gets into a boat like that unless they believe there is no other safe way," said IOM Director General Amy Pope in a statement.
"We cannot keep treating these deaths as normal. Safe and legal pathways save lives. I am asking governments and donors to act before the next boat goes down."
The IOM urged "donors and partners to strengthen support for Djibouti's response, including search and rescue operations and life-saving assistance".
The African Union Commission chairman expressed his "profound sorrow over the tragic loss of life" in a statement.
Mahmoud Ali Youssouf also stressed the urgent need to "address the root causes of irregular migration, combat migrant smuggling and trafficking in persons, and promote safe, orderly and regular migration".