Photo: MC1 Robert Ressler / Wikimedia Commons, public domain
At least 139 migrants have died after their boat capsized off the coast of Djibouti, the UN migration agency IOM said on Sunday, October 11. Another 84 people are still missing. The toll rose from 109 earlier in the day after 30 more bodies were recovered, and search and rescue work is continuing.
The boat was carrying 305 people from Djibouti towards Yemen when it went down near Guehere, north of the town of Obock, on the night of October 8-9, according to IOM. About 82 people survived. Survivors told the agency the vessel overturned in waters facing the Gulf of Aden and the Bab el-Mandeb strait.
Who was on board
The survivors are all Ethiopian nationals. Among the first 109 bodies recovered were 52 men, 42 women, nine girls and six boys, IOM said. Local authorities are arranging burials. IOM said it is providing survivors with healthcare, psychosocial support, food, shelter and protection services at its migrant response centre in Obock, and helping them get back in touch with their families.
No one gets into a boat like that unless they believe there is no other safe way. We cannot keep treating these deaths as normal.
Amy Pope, Director General, IOM
Pope called on governments and donors to act before another boat sinks, arguing that safe and legal migration routes save lives. Alexandre Coissac, who heads the agency’s Djibouti mission, called the disaster a “devastating loss of life”.
A crowded and dangerous corridor
IOM described the sinking as one of the deadliest shipwrecks recorded on what it calls the Eastern Route. Every year, tens of thousands of people from Ethiopia and elsewhere in the Horn of Africa cross the Bab el-Mandeb, which is only about 20 km wide at its narrowest point. They head through Yemen in the hope of reaching Gulf countries for work and safety.
The flow has not slowed despite war in the region. Yemen has been in a civil war for more than a decade, and fighting between government forces and the Houthis resumed last month. Since September 10, IOM has counted more than 20,000 movements from Ethiopia into Djibouti. According to the agency, more than 900 people died or went missing on this route in 2025. In March this year, nine people were killed and 45 went missing when another boat sank.
What happens next
Djiboutian authorities are still searching for the missing, and fears for them are growing, IOM said. Early reports put the number on board at about 350, while the agency’s latest statement gives 305. With 84 people still unaccounted for, the toll could rise further. IOM has urged governments to open safer routes so that fewer people risk the crossing by sea.
