Cairo: In a tragic incident, a boat carrying migrants sank off the coast of Yemen, leaving more than two dozen people dead or missing, the UN migration agency said on Sunday, the latest in a series of shipwrecks that have left dozens dead.
Despite a nearly decade-long civil war, Yemen, which borders Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the northeast, remains a major route for East African migrants trying to reach wealthy Gulf countries in search of work.
The boat, which capsized on Tuesday off Taiz province, was carrying 25 Ethiopian migrants and the captain and his assistant, both Yemenis, the International Organization for Migration said in a statement. The bodies of 11 men and two women were recovered along the coast of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which links the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea, while the other 14, including the two Yemenis, remain missing.
The migrants left Djibouti, IOM said.
“This latest tragedy is a stark reminder of the dangers migrants face on this route,” said Matt Huber, IOM’s acting country director in Yemen. “Every life lost in these dangerous waters is one more, and it is imperative that we do not normalize these devastating losses.”
The number of migrants in Yemen has tripled
The number of migrants arriving in Yemen has tripled in recent years, from around 27,000 in 2021 to more than 97,200 last year, the IOM said, and around 380,000 migrants are currently in the conflict-ravaged country.
To reach Yemen, migrants are taken by smugglers in often dangerous and overcrowded boats through the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden. In the past decade, at least 2,082 migrants have gone missing along the route, including 693 who drowned, according to the IOM.
In June, at least 49 migrants died in a shipwreck off Yemen’s southern coast, which also left 140 missing, according to IOM. Another 62 migrants died in two separate shipwrecks off the coast of Djibouti in April while trying to reach Yemen.
In 2023, IOM recorded more than 97,200 arrivals to Yemen, surpassing the figures from the previous year. People unable to reach Yemen often face threats to their safety as the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula has been mired in civil war for nearly a decade. Many people try to reach Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations to work as labourers or domestic workers.
(With contributions from the Agencies)
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