The United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM) said at least 139 migrants, including 15 children, died when 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 on Sunday, Oct. 11, after 30 more bodies were found. Its earlier tally stood at 109 dead and 116 missing. The agency said another 84 people are missing and warned that the toll could still climb.
The boat sank near Guhere, north of the fishing town of Obock. About 305 people were aboard, traveling from Djibouti toward Yemen, according to survivor accounts cited by the agency. About 82 people survived, all of them Ethiopian nationals.
Alexandre Coissac, the IOM chief of mission in Djibouti, said the migrants boarded on the evening of Oct. 8 and the boat 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. About 150 of those on the boat had previously been turned back from Yemen and were attempting the crossing a second time, Coissac said.
Survivors Treated in Obock
The IOM is assisting 64 survivors at its Migrant Response Centre in Obock, where it provides healthcare, psychosocial support, temporary shelter, food and protection services, along with help reestablishing contact with families. Some survivors were treated after swallowing seawater. Others received access to phones to tell relatives at home that they are alive. Several survivors already know that family members drowned.
Coissac traveled to the area of the shipwreck on Saturday, Oct. 10. He described the survivors he met as deeply shaken, and he said local responders could not keep pace with the bodies arriving at the shore.
Buried in a Common Grave
The official count covers only those buried by Djiboutian authorities, Coissac said. Bodies interred by the migrants themselves will not be added until authorities are able to 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 had a mother and a father, and that what happened to them may never be known.
The bodies recovered include at least 52 men, 42 women and 15 children — nine girls and six boys. Video released by the IOM shows personal items, including shoes, on a beach near the site. Djiboutian authorities are pressing on with search-and-rescue operations, treating survivors and arranging burials.
Tens of Thousands Cross Yearly
Tens of thousands of people from the Horn of Africa, mainly Ethiopians and Somalis, travel through Djibouti every year. They cross the Bab el-Mandeb Strait toward Gulf countries, above all Saudi Arabia. The IOM points to poverty, insecurity and the deepening effects of climate change as the drivers. The agency recorded movements along the Eastern Route in 2024 that were 89 percent primarily economic, 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.
Fighting has intensified on the other side of the strait between Yemen’s Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. Traffic now runs in both directions, and the agency has assisted at least 2,000 Yemenis in Djibouti.
One of the Deadliest Sinkings
The IOM’s Missing Migrants Project recorded more than 900 migrants dead or disappeared along the Eastern Route in 2025, while the numbers attempting the journey over the same period rose 18 percent. A shipwreck off Djibouti in March 2026 left nine dead and 45 missing. The agency has 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.
IOM Director General Amy Pope has pressed governments and donors for safe and legal migration channels, and she said deaths on this scale must not be accepted as routine. “No one gets into a boat like that unless they believe there is no other safe way,” she said.
