The UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM) reported a devastating shipwreck off the coast of Djibouti, which claimed the lives of 38 individuals, including children, with six others still missing and presumed dead.
Among the survivors, numbering 22, the IOM’s Djibouti office and local authorities are providing assistance.
According to the Ethiopian embassy in Djibouti, the tragic incident occurred on Monday involving a vessel carrying 60 Ethiopian migrants bound from Djibouti to Yemen. The mishap took place near the Godoria coast in northeastern Djibouti, as stated in an embassy announcement.
Annually, hundreds of thousands of African migrants embark on the perilous “Eastern Route,” traversing the Red Sea and war-torn Yemen to reach Saudi Arabia in a desperate bid to lift their families out of poverty.
The Ethiopian embassy, commenting on Facebook, highlighted the perilous journey undertaken by migrants, citing a significant number of lives lost in boat accidents, with 189 Ethiopian citizens among the casualties in the past five years alone.
Expressing concern, the embassy cautioned against the deception of human traffickers, urging judicial action against them to curb the peril faced by migrants.
The IOM’s Djibouti office revealed that nearly 1,000 migrants have perished or gone missing along the Eastern Route since 2014.
In a separate incident, Human Rights Watch previously accused Saudi border guards of using explosive weapons, resulting in the deaths of “at least hundreds” of Ethiopians attempting to cross into the Gulf kingdom between March 2022 and June 2023. Riyadh dismissed these claims as lacking credibility.
