The United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM) said at least 139 migrants, including 15 children, died after an overcrowded boat bound for Yemen capsized off the northern coast of Djibouti during the night of Oct. 8-9, 2026. Another 84 people are missing, the agency said.
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 people survived, all of them Ethiopian nationals.
Overcrowding Blamed for Sinking
Alexandre Coissac, the IOM chief of mission in Djibouti, said the migrants boarded on the evening of Oct. 8 and that 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. About 150 of the people on the boat had previously been turned back from Yemen and were making a second attempt at the crossing, Coissac said.
Rescuers have recovered at least 52 men, 42 women and 15 children, among them nine girls and six boys. The agency warned the toll could still climb. IOM released video showing personal items, including shoes, on a beach near the site.
A Count Still Incomplete
Coissac said the official count includes only those buried by Djiboutian authorities. Bodies interred by migrants themselves will not be added until authorities can verify them.
Local responders could not keep pace with the bodies arriving at the shore, he said.
“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 traveled to the area of the shipwreck Saturday, Oct. 10. He described the survivors he met as deeply shaken.
Survivors Assisted in Obock
IOM is assisting 64 survivors at its Migrant Response Centre in Obock, providing 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. Others received access to phones to tell relatives at home they are alive. Several survivors already know that family members drowned.
Djiboutian authorities are continuing search-and-rescue operations, treating survivors and arranging burials.
Deaths Mount on Eastern Route
Tens of thousands of people from the Horn of Africa, mainly Ethiopians and Somalis, move through Djibouti every year, crossing the Bab el-Mandeb Strait toward Gulf countries and above all Saudi Arabia. IOM cites poverty, insecurity and the deepening effects of climate change as drivers.
The agency recorded 89 percent of movements along the Eastern Route in 2024 as primarily economic, and 7 percent as linked to conflict, violence or persecution. Travelers face 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.
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. Traffic runs in both directions, and at least 2,000 Yemenis have been assisted in Djibouti.
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 people 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 and said deaths on this scale must not be accepted as routine.