At least 139 migrants dead after boat from Djibouti to Yemen capsizes

At least 139 migrants have died and dozens are missing after a boat carrying 305 people capsized while sailing from Djibouti to Yemen, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has said.

The boat capsized near Guhere, north of Djibouti's Obock, on Thursday night into Friday morning local time, the UN agency said, citing survivor accounts.

Alexandre Coissac, the IOM's chief of mission in Djibouti, said the vessel sank soon after it departed "mainly because it was overcrowded".

The death toll includes only those buried by authorities in Djibouti. Others have been buried by the migrants themselves but they will not be added to the official count until authorities can verify the bodies, Mr Coissac said.

More than 80 people survived, all of them Ethiopian nationals, while 84 remain missing.

Photographs shared by the UN agency showed worn-out sandals and sneakers washed up on the shore.

"Our teams are on the ground alongside local authorities to provide emergency assistance," Mr Coissac said.

Djiboutian authorities are continuing search and rescue operations, the IOM said, as well as providing medical care to survivors and arranging burials for the dead.

Both the Djibouti government and the Ethiopian government could not be immediately reached for comment.

The migrants were heading to Yemen, with the hope of eventually making it to wealthier Gulf nations, even as Yemeni nationals themselves flee their country.

Yemen is experiencing the most serious escalation in fighting between Saudi Arabia-backed government forces and the Iran-backed Houthis since a UN-brokered truce in 2022.

"Despite the violence in Yemen, migrants are still making the perilous journeys hoping to make it to the Gulf countries," the IOM statement said.

The IOM described the crisis sparked by the fighting in Yemen as alarming, with displacement figures surging to 200,000 from 76,000 in mid-September, according to data released by the agency last week.

More than 3,700 people have fled Yemen by sea to Djibouti as of last week, it said.

That is the opposite direction from the movement of the migrants who died when the boat capsized and the typical migration patterns of recent years.

Escalation of violence in Ethiopia

In the past month fighting has also broken out in Ethiopia in the biggest escalation of violence since the 2020-2022 Tigray war.

An IOM official told Reuters the agency had documented heavy migrant traffic along the so-called Eastern Route through Djibouti for several years.

"People continue to use the route amid changing conditions in Ethiopia and Yemen, although the volume and direction of movement can shift over time," the official said.

Ethiopian migrants interviewed as part of the agency's most recent situation report on Djibouti from September 20 to September 30 said they had left their country due to difficult living conditions, including the impact of drought.

Multiple residents of Tigray, where fighting erupted on September 23, have told Reuters they had seen Tigrayan rebels forcibly recruit young men into the defence forces. The rebels have denied conducting forced recruitment.

The conflict has sparked fears of a return to all-out war with Ethiopia and Eritrea severing relations over alleged Eritrean support for the rebel alliance seeking to overthrow Ethiopia's government. Eritrea has denied backing the alliance.

The so-called Eastern Route presents many dangers, including accidents at sea, trafficking and arbitrary arrests once on land.

In 2025, more than 900 migrants died or went missing along the route, according to IOM's Missing Migrants Project, as the number of people undertaking the journey increased by 18 per cent.

Reuters/AP