(The Turkish Post) – At least 139 migrants died and 84 are missing after a migrant boat carrying more than 300 people capsized off Djibouti on the night of Oct. 8 to 9 while heading for Yemen, the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Sunday, Oct. 11.
The Djibouti migrant boat sank on the so-called Eastern Route, which carries tens of thousands of people each year from the Horn of Africa across the Bab al-Mandeb strait toward Yemen and the Gulf states. More than 80 people survived, all of them Ethiopian nationals, according to the IOM.
Djibouti migrant boat toll rises to 139
The boat sank near Guhere, north of the town of Obock on Djibouti’s northern coast, which faces the Gulf of Aden and the Bab al-Mandeb strait.
The IOM first reported 109 deaths. The toll rose to 139 after rescuers recovered another 30 bodies, the agency said in its Sunday statement. Of the first 109 victims, 52 were men, 42 were women and 15 were children, nine girls and six boys.
Reports of the exact number of people on board differ. Figures published after the IOM statement ranged from 305 to 350 passengers. Search and rescue operations by Djiboutian authorities were continuing on Sunday.
The IOM has not said what caused the migrant boat to capsize.
IOM calls the shipwreck a devastating loss
“This is a devastating loss of life,” said Alexandre Coissac, the IOM chief of mission in Djibouti. He said the agency’s teams were working alongside local authorities to provide emergency assistance to survivors.
The agency said poverty, insecurity and the growing effects of climate change push many people to make the journey, despite rising instability across the Middle East. Most of those who take the route hope to find work in the Gulf countries.
A surge on the Eastern Route
The IOM’s displacement monitoring system has recorded more than 20,000 movements into Djibouti from Ethiopia since Sept. 10.
Those who reach Yemen must cross a country at war to get to the Saudi border. The UN envoy for Yemen told the Security Council on Oct. 9 that the country had returned to full-scale war, with fighting spreading across several front lines.
Deadly year for migrants after record 2025
The IOM said in March that 922 people died or went missing on the Eastern Route in 2025, about double the number recorded in 2024 and the highest annual toll on record. Most of the victims were Ethiopians, and others came from Somalia and neighboring countries.
“2025 was the deadliest year ever recorded on the Eastern migration route,” Tanja Pacifico, then the IOM chief of mission in Djibouti, said at the time. Most migrants on the route seek jobs as laborers or domestic workers in the Gulf states.
On Aug. 3, 2025, a migrant boat carrying more than 150 people capsized off Yemen’s southern Abyan province, and dozens of people died or went missing, most of them believed to be Ethiopians, the IOM said. Death and missing figures changed several times in the following days.
In 2023, the rights group Human Rights Watch accused Saudi border guards of killing hundreds of Ethiopian migrants who tried to cross from Yemen between 2022 and 2023. Saudi Arabia rejected the accusation.
Late on March 24, 2026, a traditional migrant boat carrying 320 people sank off the same stretch of coast near Guhere, according to Djibouti’s coast guard. Rescuers pulled 266 people from the water, and the IOM said at least nine people died and 45 were missing.
“This tragic shipwreck may sadly mark the first of many incidents this year,” Pacifico said after that sinking. The death toll from the October shipwreck is now more than 15 times higher, and the search for the 84 missing continues.
