GENEVA (AP) — A boat packed with migrants capsized off the coast of Djibouti on the way to Yemen this week, the U.N. migration agency said Friday. At least nine people died and another 45 are missing after the shipwreck.
The tragedy was the latest in a series of shipwrecks between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula that have over the past few years killed several thousand African migrants fleeing conflict and poverty in hopes of reaching wealthy Gulf Arab countries.
The boat had left from the Djibouti port town of Obock with more than 300 people were on board and was trying to cross the Bab el-Mandeb Strait when it went down on Tuesday, the International Organization for Migration said.
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Strait of Hormuz — Tehran’s chokehold in the ongoing Iran war — are on opposite sides of the Arabian Peninsula.
A search continues for possible survivors, said Tanja Pacifico, IOM’s chief of mission in Djibouti.
“The sea is very rough, and there were also strong winds,” Pacifico told a regular U.N. press briefing in Geneva by video. “This route is known to be a very deadly one.”
She said that testimonies from the survivors described “an extremely heavy load for the boat.”
The shipwreck was the first this year in the area, Pacifico said. Last year, more than 900 migrants died or went missing on the route, the highest toll on record on the strait, the IOM said.
The passage typically lures tens of thousands of migrants from Africa “in search of safety and economic opportunities,” the agency said.