The United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM) said at least 139 migrants, including 15 children, died and another 84 people remain missing after an overcrowded boat bound for Yemen capsized off the northern coast of Djibouti during the night of Oct. 8-9, 2026.
The agency revised its count sharply upward Sunday, Oct. 11, after 30 more bodies were found. The earlier tally stood at 109 dead and 116 missing.
The boat went down near Guhere, north of the fishing town of Obock, on a stretch of coast bordering Ethiopia. About 305 people were aboard, traveling from Djibouti toward Yemen, according to survivor accounts cited by the agency. About 82 survivors are all Ethiopian nationals.
Survivors Describe a Swift Sinking
Alexandre Coissac, the IOM chief of mission in Djibouti, said the migrants boarded on the evening of Oct. 8 and the vessel sank shortly afterward, close to shore. He said overcrowding was primarily the cause.
Survivors told the agency the vessel began going down backwards the moment they climbed aboard. Coissac said about 150 of those on the boat had previously been turned back from Yemen and were making a second attempt at the crossing.
The IOM is assisting 64 survivors at its Migrant Response Centre in Obock with healthcare, psychosocial support, temporary shelter, food and protection services. The agency is also helping survivors reestablish contact with their families. Staff treated some survivors after they swallowed seawater, and gave others access to phones to tell relatives at home they are alive. Several survivors already know that family members drowned.
Buried Without Names
Coissac traveled to the area of the shipwreck Saturday, Oct. 10. He said the official count covers only those buried by Djiboutian authorities, and that bodies interred by migrants themselves will not be added until authorities can verify them.
“What is terrible is that they were buried with no names, in a common grave, like in a war situation,” Coissac said.
He added that the dead all have a mother and a father, and that what happened to them may never be known. Coissac said local responders could not keep pace with the bodies arriving at the shore, and he described the survivors he met as deeply shaken.
The bodies recovered include at least 52 men, 42 women and 15 children — nine girls and six boys. The agency has warned that the toll could still climb. The IOM released video showing personal items, including shoes, on a beach near the site.
Djiboutian authorities are continuing search-and-rescue operations, treating survivors and arranging burials.
A Deadly Route to the Gulf
Tens of thousands of people from the Horn of Africa, mainly Ethiopians and Somalis, pass through Djibouti every year, crossing the Bab el-Mandeb Strait toward Gulf countries, above all Saudi Arabia. The IOM cites poverty, insecurity and the deepening effects of climate change as drivers of the journey.
Movements recorded along the Eastern Route in 2024 were 89 percent primarily economic, according to the same record, with 7 percent linked to conflict, violence or persecution. The route exposes migrants to intense heat, overloaded boats and the risk of drowning in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Migrants who reach Yemen can face violence, arbitrary arrest and detention, exploitation and trafficking, the agency said.
The IOM has logged more than 20,000 movements into Djibouti from Ethiopia since Sept. 10. Across the strait, Yemen’s Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government is fighting Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. The traffic runs both ways, and at least 2,000 Yemenis have been assisted in Djibouti.
The IOM’s Missing Migrants Project recorded more than 900 migrants dead or disappeared along the Eastern Route in 2025, a year in which the number of people attempting the journey rose 18 percent. A shipwreck off Djibouti in March 2026 left nine dead and 45 missing.
The agency called the Oct. 8-9 sinking one of the deadliest yet recorded on the Eastern Route linking the Horn of Africa to the Arabian Peninsula.
“No one gets into a boat like that unless they believe there is no other safe way,” IOM Director General Amy Pope said. Pope pressed governments and donors to open safe and legal migration channels, saying deaths on this scale must not be accepted as routine.
