Boat capsizes off Djibouti, killing 139 migrants

At least 139 people, including children, have died after a boat carrying more than 300 migrants capsized off the coast of Djibouti in east Africa, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Sunday.

That number only includes those buried by authorities in Djibouti. Others have been buried by the migrants themselves, but they will not be added to the official count until authorities can verify the bodies, IOM chief of mission in Djibouti Alexandre Coissac said.

“What is terrible is that they were buried with no names, in a common grave, like in a war situation,” Coissac said. “They all have a mother, a father, and we may never learn what happened.”

Workers wearing protective suits prepare to recover a body on a beach in Obock, Djibouti, on Saturday, after a boat carrying migrants capsized.

Photo: AP

He said the migrants boarded the ship in the evening of Thursday last week and that it sank very soon after, close to the shore, “mainly because it was overcrowded.”

“The local authorities did their best,” he said, adding that “they were overwhelmed with all the bodies that kept coming at once towards the shore.”

He said authorities were bringing the surviving migrants to the IOM rescue center in Obock where they receive medical assistance after swallowing sea water, and psychological support.

“They’re all in a state of shock,” said Coissac, who visited the area of the shipwreck on Saturday. “I tried to talk to some of them, but it’s very difficult.”

Some of the migrants in the IOM center are already aware that their family members died during the shipwreck. Others were given access to phones to call loved ones back home to notify them they are alive.

At least 84 people remained missing in one of the deadliest shipwrecks yet on the popular, but perilous crossing from the Horn of Africa to the Arabian Peninsula, where many migrants seek work in rich Gulf nations.

The boat was traveling from Djibouti to Yemen when it capsized on Thursday night or Friday morning, the IOM said.

More than 80 people survived, all of them Ethiopian nationals, it said.

The Geneva, Switzerland-based UN migration agency said the vessel had 305 people on board and warned that the death toll could still rise.

Personal items likely belonging to the migrants, including shoes, were seen on a beach in a video shared by IOM.

Rescue work continued as fears grew for the missing.

Tens of thousands of migrants from the Horn of Africa travel every year through Djibouti and across the Bab el-Mandeb Strait toward Gulf countries in search of safety and economic opportunities, the IOM said in its statement.