The United Nations Migration Agency claims that two organizations have recovered Djibouti while dozens of migrants and five Yemeni crew members remain missing.
Four boats carrying migrants from Africa have capsized in the waters off Yemen and Djibouti, leaving at least two people who died and 186 disappeared, according to the United Nations Migration Agency.
A spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration (OIM) said on Friday that two of the boats capsized Yemen late Thursday.
Tamim Eleian said two crew members had been rescued, but 181 migrants and five Yemeni crew members remained missing.
The head of the IOIM mission in Yemen said that the majority of those on board are Ethiopian migrants and that five were supposed to be Yemeni crew members. At least 57, of the two boats, were women.
“We are working with the authorities to see if we can find survivors, but I am afraid that we do not have them,” Abdusattor Esoev told the AFP news agency.
Two other boats capsized the tiny African nation of Djibouti at the same time, said Eleian. Two migrant bodies have been recovered and all the others on board were rescued.
Despite an almost decadelong civil war, Yemen remains a major path for migrants and refugees from East Africa and the Horn of Africa trying to reach the Gulf countries to work. Hundreds of thousands of people try the crossing each year.
To reach Yemen, people are taken by smugglers on often dangerous and overcrowded boats through the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden.
The number of people reaching Yemen reached 97,200 in 2023 – Triple the number in 2021.
But last year, the number fell to just under 61,000 among the increased water patrols, according to an IOM report this month.
The IOM said that 558 people died along the course in 2024.
In January, 20 Ethiopians were killed when their boat capsized Yemen.
Over the past decade, at least 2,082 people have disappeared along the route, including 693 known for drowned, according to the IOM.
About 380,000 migrants are currently in Yemen.
