At least 48 people have died at sea and 75 are missing after smugglers forced migrants on two boats to jump overboard off the coast of Djibouti, the UN migration agency said on Wednesday. (IOM).
A total of 320 people from Ethiopia were on board two boats that left Yemen when they were forced by their Yemeni smugglers “to disembark in the open sea and swim” on Tuesday around 3 a.m. local time (0000 GMT). ), detailed the IOM to AFP.
Among the 197 survivors is a 4-month-old baby whose mother drowned.
A previous report given Tuesday by the UN agency reported 45 deaths.
This tragedy, which occurred off the coast of the town of Obock, makes 2024 “the deadliest year for maritime crossings of migrants, between the East and the Horn of Africa and Yemen”, deplored the IOM.
Every year, tens of thousands of migrants from the Horn of Africa, often from Ethiopia and Somalia, take the “Eastern Route” and cross the Red Sea in an attempt to reach the Gulf countries. oil-rich, fleeing conflict, natural disasters and poor economic prospects at home.
Among those who make the crossing, many find themselves stranded in Yemen, the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula in the grip of a civil war for nearly ten years, where they try to survive in difficult conditions. Some even prefer to turn back.
At least 1,300 migrants have died on this “Eastern route” since 2014, including 337 between January and August 2024, says the IOM.
In May, the IOM reported that, despite the dangers, the number of migrants arriving in Yemen each year had “tripled from 2021 to 2023, from around 27,000 to more than 90,000.”