The United Nations migration agency announced on Tuesday that a boat carrying 77 migrants sank off the coast of Djibouti, resulting in 21 deaths and 23 missing persons. This is the second occurrence of its kind in two weeks.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) stated in a post on social media site X that children were among the passengers aboard the boat.
According to the IOM, tens of thousands of migrants from the Horn of Africa, particularly from Ethiopia and Somalia, travel through Djibouti on their way to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries in search of employment.
Many fail, and thousands end up stuck in Yemen, where they endure substandard living conditions, according to IOM. In the waters around Djibouti, drownings occur frequently when migrants travel there.
Tanja Paco, the principal of its Djiboutian office, said Tuesday’s death toll had risen from an earlier figure of 16 IOM had given.
She said that 33 more individuals had been pulled out of the sea, and that all of the deceased and the survivors were Ethiopians.
“It’s remarkable because we had another shipwreck with 38 Ethiopian citizens less than two weeks ago,” Pacifico said over the phone to Reuters.
There were children among the at least 38 fatalities from the shipwreck off the coast of Djibouti.
She said that the overturned boat on Tuesday was traveling from Yemen to Djibouti.
“For the last few months, these numbers have been rising,” Pacifico stated.
(Reuters)
