At least 139 migrants dead after overcrowded boat capsizes off Djibouti

At least 139 migrants drowned, including 15 children, when an overcrowded boat capsized off the coast of Djibouti late last week, the United Nations migration agency said Sunday, in one of the deadliest shipwrecks ever recorded on the route between the Horn of Africa and Yemen.

The boat was carrying 305 people, most of them Ethiopians, from Djibouti toward Yemen when it went down near Guhere, north of the coastal town of Obock, on the night of October 8. Another 84 people were still missing as of Sunday, and 82 survived, all Ethiopian nationals.

The International Organization for Migration initially reported 109 dead, then revised the toll to 139 after 30 more bodies were recovered. The count could rise further: some victims were buried by fellow migrants in unmarked graves and will not enter the official toll until authorities can verify them.

Survivors told the agency's chief of mission in Djibouti, Alexandre Coissac, that the boat started sinking backward almost as soon as they boarded, mainly because it was so overcrowded. About 150 of those aboard had previously been turned back from Yemen and were attempting the crossing again.

No one gets into a boat like that unless they believe there is no other safe way, said IOM Director General Amy Pope. We cannot keep treating these deaths as normal.

The crossing from the Horn of Africa to Yemen across the Bab al Mandeb strait is one of the world's busiest and most dangerous migration corridors, used by hundreds of thousands of people, mainly Ethiopians and Somalis, seeking work in Gulf countries or fleeing conflict and drought. The agency has recorded more than 20,000 movements from Ethiopia into Djibouti since September 10 alone, driven by poverty, insecurity and the mounting effects of climate change.