75 still missing in Djibouti migrant boat tragedy — IOM

Rescue workers searched Wednesday for 75 people believed missing after smugglers forced them to swim in the open sea off Djibouti’s coast, the UN’s migration agency said.

The night-time incident involved two boats carrying 320 people from Yemen, a perilous journey on the so-called Eastern Route for migrants from Africa.

With 48 confirmed dead, it was the second deadliest disaster on the route this year, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said, and makes 2024 the deadliest year on record.

Yemeni boat operators forced the migrants “to disembark in the open sea and swim,” the UN agency said, citing survivors.

In one boat with 100 passengers, a mother of a four-month old infant drowned, IOM said, though the child survived.

The Djibouti Coast Guard was leading the search.

Each year, tens of thousands of migrants brave the Eastern Route from the Horn of Africa, seeking to escape conflict, natural disasters, and poor economic prospects by sailing across the Red Sea towards the oil-rich Gulf.

Many hope for employment as labourers or domestic workers in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries, though they face a perilous journey through war-torn Yemen.

The IOM told AFP the migrants from Tuesday’s disaster were Ethiopians returning from Yemen.

In total, IOM has recorded at least 1,300 migrants deaths on the Eastern Route since 2014, and 337 between January and August 2024.

Some 196 people perished on the route in June, according to IOM, while at least 13 people died when their boat capsized off the Yemeni coast in August.

The IOM calls the Eastern Route “one of the busiest, most complex, and dangerous” migration routes in the world.