Yemen Boat Tragedy: At least 68 migrants died and 74 are missing after a boat sank off Yemen’s coast. Only 12 survived, prompting a large-scale search effort.
A tragedy truck the southern coast of Yemen on Sunday, where at least 68 African migrants died and 74 are missing after the capsizing of a vessel in the Gulf of Aden.
The boat that was reportedly carrying 154 Ethiopian nationals sank near Yemen's Abyan province, as per the UN's International Organization for Migration (IOM).
IOM's Yemen chief, Abdusattor Esoev confirmed that '54 bodies were discovered washed up on the shores of Khanfar district', to the Associated Press. He further added that 14 more bodies were then transported to the hospital morgue in Zinjibar, Abyan province's capital. Only 12 people survived the incident. the other passengers are still unaccounted for and are presumed dead.
Abyan's security authorities initiated a wide-scale search due to the large number of casualties, with numerous bodies scattered along the coastline.
IOM indicated that this incident is a part of similar marine-time tragedies. In March, four boats carrying migrants capsized off the shores of Yemen and Djibouti. 2 deaths were confirmed in that incident, and 186 people were missing.
Despite the ongoing conflict and instability within the country, Yemen remains a key transit route for East African and Horn of Africa migrants, trying to reach the Gulf nations in search of job opportunities.
The migrants hand over their lives to the human smugglers who overload the vessels, making the sea journey across the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden unsafe, resulting in a rising death toll.
A report of IOM from March noted that around 60,000 migrants arrived in Yemen in 2024, a significant decline from the reports of 2023, when 97,200 migrants made the journey.
