Massive Boat Capsize Off Yemen’s Coast Leaves 142 African Migrants Dead or Missing
Off the coast of Yemen, a tragic boat incident occurred on Sunday, resulting in the deaths of 68 African migrants and leaving 74 others missing, as confirmed by the United Nations’ migration agency.
This latest maritime accident marks another grim addition to a series of shipwrecks off Yemen’s shores that have claimed the lives of hundreds of African migrants seeking refuge in the wealthy Gulf Arab countries from conflict and poverty.
The ill-fated vessel, carrying 154 Ethiopian migrants, succumbed to capsizing early Sunday morning in the Gulf of Aden off the southern Yemeni province of Abyan. According to Abdusattor Esoev, head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Yemen, the incident occurred.
Esoev reported that the recovered bodies of 54 migrants were discovered on the shores of Khanfar, while an additional 14 corpses were found and transported to a morgue at Zinjibar, the provincial capital of Abyan situated on Yemen’s southern coast.
Regrettably, only 12 migrants survived the incident; the rest are assumed deceased due to their disappearance.
In a statement, the Abyan security directorate detailed an extensive search-and-rescue operation in response to the significant number of casualties and missing individuals. The statement highlighted the discovery of numerous bodies scattered across a wide area of the shoreline.
Despite over a decade of civil war, Yemen remains a popular transit route for migrants from East Africa and the Horn of Africa, who aspire to secure work opportunities in the Gulf Arab nations. These migrants are often smuggled on precarious, overcrowded vessels across the Red Sea or Gulf of Aden.
In recent months, numerous maritime disasters off Yemen’s coast have resulted in hundreds of fatalities and disappearances among migrants. One such incident occurred in March when two migrants perished, and 186 others went missing after four vessels capsized off Yemen and Djibouti, as reported by the IOM.
In 2024, approximately 60,000 migrants reached Yemen’s shores—a decrease from the 97,200 who arrived in 2023, possibly due to intensified patrols of the waters, according to an IOM report published in March.